


The Fourth Miracle

by Kitshunette



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Attack on Space, M/M, Reincarnation, also a bit of, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-13 10:33:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1223080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitshunette/pseuds/Kitshunette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you want to hear the story of the Guardian?” the old lady asked, and her grandson immediately looked up at her with wide shiny eyes.<br/>“A lot of things have gone lost, and some have probably been invented along the way, but the legend’s core is still burning in our memories. Our ancestors have done a lot of wrong to the Guardian, darling, but he never ever betrayed them in return. People gave him a lot of names but his given one has long been forgotten. There is one name that has come down in our family though, and for as long as I can remember, we have always called him this way.”<br/>“What name, Grandma?”<br/>The old lady smiled for herself, letting the flow of the story silently rush again through her mind, and took a deep breath.</p>
<p>"Levi."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hello!
> 
> As I put it in the tag, a part of the story is based in the Attack on Space universe (a fanmade sci-fi version of the show with perfect voices) that you can find here : [Attack on Space](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rcli5CP9qVU&list=PLHag1n-EhbLnPFS2T3ata_i0e6b39nAmC&feature=c4-overview-vl)  
> (It's friggin awesome seriously asxpdejf the last eps are like super intense omg i love this thing okay)  
> (I'm not following the series' plot though so ARMIN isn't acting weird here haha (I still fucking love him tho ewe) *hit*)
> 
> **Note :** **You don't need to have watched all the eps of AoS for this story.** Basically all you need to know is that humanity left the Earth in three Arks (Maria, Rose  & Sina) and have been travelling for 1000 years in space to reach a planet called Axiom, and that the ships' computer is called ARMIN.  
> (I still recommend you to watch the whole series because it's awesome ehehe 8D)
> 
> You can find me [here](http://kitshunette.tumblr.com/) on tumblr too if you want~ (it's really just a bunch of unrelated things and I pretend that it's a blog but ssshhh)
> 
> Anyway, I hope that you will enjoy this, and have a good day/evening/night everyone~ o/

 

“Grandma,” the little boy called, pointing at the pictures they had taken earlier in the morning. “If the Guardian isn’t a statue, why is he staying there all day? Isn’t it tiring?”

The old lady sighed and gestured at her grandson to come closer, and a few seconds later, a little ball was eagerly climbing on her old knees and settling comfortably on her lap. The old woman then softly wrapped an arm around the boy and grabbed a frame with a carefully reconstituted white and black picture in it, featuring a blond man in his thirties wearing an old military uniform, one that had disappeared a long long time ago.

“Do you know who this man is, darling?” the old lady asked, handing the frame to her grandson. The boy took it in both his hands and turned his head to face his grandmother, slightly frowning.

“It’s Commander Erwin Smith. We went to his memorial today, why are you asking me this?”

“And who was Commander Erwin Smith?” the old woman insisted with an encouraging smile.

The little boy pondered for a moment, his frown deepening.

“The 13th Commander of the Scouting Legion?” he finally replied, hesitant.

“And why is he important to our family?”

“Because he’s one of our ancestors.”

“Indeed,” the old woman smiled, lightly patting her grandson’s head to tell him that he did great. The boy grinned widely back at her with pride, and looked at the picture again.

“Pa says that the Guardian and the Commander were linked by a red thread, is it true?”

His grandmother chuckled, slowly rocking her chair back and forth.

“Do you want it to be true?”

“It would be cute. But also kind of unpractical, I think.”

She stopped and stared at the boy in confusion for a moment, then started giggling to her grandson’s surprise.

“What is so funny, Grandma?” he pouted.

“I don’t think your dad meant it literally, darling.”

The boy looked at her like she just kicked his puppy, which only made his grandmother laugh even more. After a moment, she finally calmed down and placed a hand on her grandson’s head, and distractedly started stroking his fair hair.

“Do you want to hear the story of the Guardian?”

The boy immediately gaped and looked at her with wide eyes, then started nodding vigorously, his big eyes suddenly shining with curiosity and excitement again. The old lady’s heart warmed and beat with love at this sight, and she softly smiled back, then closed her eyes and searched for this particular feeling she always had every time she told this story. It was a very old legend, one that had been passed down to her by her own father, who had got it from his aunt, who had herself heard it from her mother, and no one really knew which parts were true and which parts were just fantasies. The old lady was sure that everyone had added or removed some details every time, but she had tried to stay as close as possible from the version her father had told her, so many years ago.

“A lot of things have gone lost, and some have probably been invented along the way, but the legend’s core is still burning in our memories. Our ancestors have done a lot of wrong to the Guardian, darling, but he never ever betrayed them in return. People gave him a lot of names but…”

“I heard Tom’s mom call him the Archangel,” the boy interrupted, leaning his head backwards to catch his grandma’s eyes, who cracked them open to indulge him. She looked down and fondly smiled at him.

“Indeed. His given name has long been forgotten though, but there is one that has come down in our family. For as long as I can remember, we have always called him this way.” She paused, closing her eyes again and taking a silent breath. After a few seconds, she felt the little boy shift with impatience on her lap, and soon his childish voice rose to her ears again.

“What name, Grandma?”

The old lady smiled slightly, deciding to torture her grandson a bit more. He wasn’t going to let her do as she wished though, and lightly shoved her on the forearm.

“Grandma!”

“Patience, patience, your Grandma is an old woman now,” she laughed. She then opened her eyes and caught the boy half-turned back towards her, frowning with annoyance. She pulled him back against her, and sighed quietly, enjoying her grandson’s warmth against her.

“This is a name that has travelled through the eras, darling. It isn’t just a word; it is a legend, it is people, it is us. Don’t forget it.”

“What name?” the boy repeated, but this time more quietly. The old lady smiled for herself, letting the flow of the story silently rush again through her mind, and took a deep breath.

 

“Levi.”

 

 

***

 

 

“So, why exactly and how did an underground thief destroy one of the MP’s most secret and highly protected research facilities?”

Nile flinched a bit at the barely hidden heavy sarcasm in his friend’s voice; he could almost feel disbelief radiating from his body across the table.

“It isn’t our place to ask questions, Erwin,” the young man answered carefully. The blonde just stared back at him, a slight frown creasing his forehead. After a few tense seconds, Erwin eventually diverted his eyes and reported them on the untouched mug in front of him.

“Look at how docile they have made you,” he commented quietly, almost as if the words were only meant for himself. But Nile knew that he had made sure that he had heard him; and even if the large web of implications this short sentence carried still made him feel a pang of guilt, the young MP mostly just felt anger and annoyance. This was getting old.

“Marie and I are getting married next summer,” he suddenly declared, and looked closely at Erwin for his reaction. The blonde immediately shot his eyes back at him, and Nile had the pleasure to catch surprise on his face before he modelled his features back in a blank expression.

“Well, congratulations. Maybe Mike and I will still be alive to assist to it.”

“Will you just stop this?”

“Stop what?” Erwin had the audacity to ask in an innocent tone. Nile opened his mouth to snarl back an answer, but the words suddenly died in his throat when he spotted by the window a carriage stopping in front of the tavern they were currently in, the crest of the Military Police painted at its side. Erwin immediately turned back to follow his gaze, and the two young men watched silently as three MP officers entered the building and walked straight to their table. The whole place had instantly fallen silent right after their entry, and Nile could feel every eye on them, every breath been held. Seeing MPs looking for some distraction in the tavern wasn’t uncommon; seeing MPs clearly on duty and blatantly displaying guns hanging by their sides implied a whole other thing. As the three men stopped next to them, Nile suddenly remembered his years of training and swiftly stood up in a salute. He heard more than he saw Erwin doing the same, his eyes sill fixed on the officers.

“At ease, Cadets,” one of them ordered, and Nile let his arms fall by his side before joining his hands behind his back, still standing as straight as a broom. The leading officer’s eyes hovered over him from head to toe for a couple of seconds before finally diverting his eyes and turning towards Erwin.

“Cadet Erwin Smith?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please follow us.”

Nile couldn’t help looking with surprise at the man.

“Excuse me sir, wasn’t I supposed to come with E –”

“Cadet Smith will come alone. You are dismissed, Cadet Dawk.”

Nile blinked a few times, barely swallowing back a protest, and shot a worried look at Erwin. The blonde just looked back at him blankly, but Nile could still spot the hardness in his blue eyes. Anyone else would have probably missed it, but he had spent more than three years living in Erwin’s vicinity almost twenty-four hours a day; he had seen him at his best and at his worst, and there weren’t many twitches of mouth from Erwin that Nile couldn’t interpret.

And right now, he could see that his friend was deeply worried.

And maybe a bit scared.

“Do I have to repeat myself?” the officer suddenly asked with an annoyed voice, making Nile’s eyes snap back at him. But before he could say anything, Erwin stepped forward and took the posture of someone obediently waiting to be told where to go. With a last glance at Nile, the MPs then turned back and headed outside, Erwin walking in the middle of the group. Nile followed them with his eyes until the carriage with the unicorn crest had disappeared in the narrow streets of Sina, a strange weight in his stomach.

He couldn’t shake off the feeling that he had involuntarily led his friend right into a trap.

 

*

 

_The machine barely beeped before the computer’s voice rose in the silent room._

_“Sir, the expedition members have returned.”_

_Erwin couldn’t help but start slightly, accidentally clenching his fist and creasing the paper he was reading in the process._

_“Thank you ARMIN,” he replied after a short moment, breathing in deeply, then slowly relaxed his hand and tried to flatten the paper again with his palms. “Please tell Levi to come report immediately, I have to inform the Admiral of the results of the expedition as soon as possible.”_

_Instead of the usual “Yes sir” that Erwin was expecting, a strange silence followed his words, and the blond man looked up at the interface screen with a frown._

_“ARMIN?”_

_“Yes, about that sir…” the ethereal voice began, almost hesitantly. “I have been checking their signals since the moment they have been within reach again, but it appears that…” He paused again and Erwin sat up a little in his chair, his heart starting beating in anxiety at ARMIN’s odd behaviour._

_“What?” he asked, a bit too sharply._

_“I’m sorry sir, but…” the voice slowly answered, “but it appears that Lieutenant Levi is missing.”_

*

 

Erwin could feel three sets of eyes staring at him like hawks, and he tried to stay completely still, sitting on the simple wooden chair of the cold room. A single table was placed in front of him, another empty chair waiting at the other side of it. The place was barely lit by a small light bulb on the ceiling, revealing just enough of the stone walls around him to let him know that there wasn’t any other exit than the metallic door on the wall at his left he had passed to get in, along with the three MPs.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that it was an interrogation room.

The door suddenly opened with a loud grind, startling Erwin; and immediately after, a middle-aged woman with dark hair cut in the standard military way emerged from the shadows, her boots clicking on the stone floor, the sounds echoing with an unnerving rhythm on the walls. The young man felt a cold sweat forming on his back when he saw the red orb around the lady’s neck, shining like crystallized blood in the dim light. She gestured at the three MPs to leave them alone, then stopped in front of the empty chair and silently sat down, her eyes fixed on Erwin with an unreadable expression, barely blinking. The young man gulped silently, suddenly feeling like a mouse under the gaze of a hawk, but he resolutely withstood Commander Hélène Châtelain’s look. He heard the door closing behind the three soldiers with a loud thud, somewhere out of his vision field.

“Cadet Erwin Smith,” the Commander stated, not breaking eye contact.

“Yes, Madam,” Erwin answered, stubbornly refusing to be the first one to divert his eyes. He was absolutely convinced that this was going against every rule of discipline his instructors had tried to force into him, but he also felt with all his guts that at this very moment, an obedient soldier wasn’t at all what the Commander wanted to see. Erwin had no idea where it came from, but his instinct had never let him down, and given the fact that he was in front of a completely unknown situation he had near to zero grasp on, it was more than worth a try to trust his guts. So the young man held the Commander’s dark stare, blinking at a slow and steady pace.

And after a few seconds of tense silence, the officer suddenly burst out laughing and looked away, making Erwin’s eyes widen in surprise.

“Well, I see that Shadis didn’t lie when he told me about his new recruits,” she chuckled, the laugh making all her face come to life warmly, the few wrinkles next to her eyes creasing in a nice way. Erwin stared back at her, completely dumbfounded.

“I bet that you have a lot of questions as to why you were brought here, Erwin,” the Commander then said after a short while, seriousness all over her face and voice again. She then looked with insistence at the young man, inviting him to speak if he wished to.

“I…,” Erwin started before coughing sharply, his voice sounding a bit too hoarse. “I was told that the Military Police requested my assistance in the recent theft of a research laboratory …?” he let his question hang in the air and pointedly looked around him, conveying his lack of understanding as to why they had brought him in an interrogation room if they needed his help. “Though I don’t see what kind of assistance I could be to you in this affair.”

Commander Châtelain didn’t answer immediately, just staring at Erwin with a distracted look. The young man didn’t let himself be impressed, and calmly stared back at her, waiting for her to speak. After a short moment, her voice finally rose again, low and quiet.

“To be honest, we are not sure either.”

Erwin couldn’t help his eyebrow from going up on his forehead in response. He had the decency not to comment though, even if the MP’s honest answer left him completely bewildered. After a moment, the lady sighed heavily and leaned forward on the table, joining her hands in front of her and looking at Erwin from under. The young man felt weird looking down at a high ranking officer, but the feeling immediately stopped when he met her eyes again. Her dark pupils were reflecting the light on the ceiling through her glasses, giving him the impression of staring inside a starry sky.

Giving him the impression of being so extremely small.

“I think you are aware that it wasn’t just a theft,” Hélène suddenly said, tilting her head slightly. Erwin just nodded, his throat feeling dry. “That was seriously the poorest excuse I have ever heard. But well, the superiors don’t have much imagination sometimes,” she then laughed bitterly, before backing from the table and leaning back on her chair. A long silence passed, and after recovering from his eerie experience of staring at a close range in the lady’s eyes, Erwin began to feel his patience wearing off. He knew that something very big had happened, that the Commander knew what it was and also knew that he didn’t, and being purposely kept in the dark had always been the source of Erwin’s greatest irritation.

“What happened?” the young man finally gave in, and he swore he saw a smug smile appear on the Commander’s lips. “And what do I have to do with it?”

“That is still to be determined,” Hélène replied, a playful grin on her lips. Erwin just arched an eyebrow at her, and the lady rolled her eyes. “Let me have some fun too, it’s rare to find recruits like you these days. Most of them can’t even look at me in the eyes, let alone give me an _attitude_.” Erwin suddenly remembered with a faint panic that his behaviour didn’t really suit a barely graduated trainee talking to one of the highest ranking officer of the Army, but the Commander didn’t let him time to react before she spoke again.

“Okay, what do you know about the discovery we made in the underground two weeks ago?” Erwin frowned a little, searching his memories for the details of the past fortnight. He did remember a fellow trainee whose brother was in the MP talking with big excited gestures about some sort of discovery they had made while searching Sina’s underground, but Erwin had to confess that at that time, he had been way more concerned about the upcoming exams than what was happening in the Capital.

“Not much,” he replied honestly.

“We found something. Someone.” Erwin raised an eyebrow, making the Commander sigh again. “Well, it had the appearance of a man. But it wasn’t really one.” She paused, as if pondering how to explain it, and Erwin waited patiently for her to continue. “We found… him in some sort of capsule, I had never seen anything like this before. It was inside a collapsed wall, as if someone had placed it there and put the mud and rock back. Anyway, he was unconscious and we took him and the capsule back to one of our centres and a team of researchers ran some tests on him.” A silence fell again, Hélène’s eyes seemingly losing themselves somewhere far from here. After a moment that Erwin decided to deem as too long, the young man shifted impatiently on his chair.

“And?” he prompted, his skin literally itching for an answer.

“He didn’t bleed, Erwin,” the Commander whispered, her eyes wide as if she was reliving the scenes again. “He didn’t have a heartbeat. And his skeleton was made of metal. A really strange metal that weighs less than our bones but is far more solid.”

If Erwin didn’t know that he could tell when people were lying to him, he would have thought that Hélène Châtelain was pulling his leg, even if there didn’t seem to be any valid reason for the head of the interior Military Police to play a prank on a freshly graduated cadet. But something told Erwin that the MP was painfully honest, and the young man just didn’t know how to handle that information, let alone give a proper reaction. The lady spared him the effort though, as she resumed her telling.

“He woke up yesterday, and at a… very bad moment. We weren’t even sure that he was alive, and after almost two weeks, half of the team just wanted to know what exactly he was, so they kind of… started cutting him open.”

“He didn’t appreciate.”

The Commander snickered slightly, but her smile quickly faded.

“He attacked them. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen the recording footage, but he…” She had to take a deep breath, and Erwin could feel his heart beating faster, reacting to the Commander’s expression. “God, Erwin, I have never seen anyone move this fast. He was so small, but he just snapped their necks like they were merely dead sticks and turned everything upside down. It was a carnage, Erwin. Only one survived, and she will probably never walk again in her life.”

Hélène’s words hanged for a long time between them, almost sparkling static electricity, Erwin tried to let everything she just said sink in him. A man made of steel who couldn’t bleed, with inhumane speed and strength who was found in a strange capsule in a wall in Sina’s underground.

At this point, Erwin was almost expecting Commander Shadis’s voice to bark in the distance and to wake up in his narrow and anything but comfortable bed in the barracks, with the feeling of having had a very strange dream.

“But what do I have to do with this?” Erwin eventually asked with a quiet sigh, his brain still kind of refusing to fully accept the absurd story he was just been told, even if he could also feel another part of him reacting in a completely opposite way, sending distant waves of excitement through his veins, just so _convinced_ that everything was completely true. The Commander stared back at him silently for a few seconds, her eyes giving him the impression that she was digging little holes in his skin.

“The surviving researcher said that he said something when he woke up. Just one word.”

The young man silently froze, the air between them seemingly dropping by a few degrees.

 

“ _Erwin._ ”

 

 


	2. Chapter One

_The first miracle was that you were born_  
 _The second miracle was the time spent with you_  
 _A lonely scientist developed a robot_  
 _The result was said to be a “miracle”_

*

 

“So you are saying that the alien guy had the picture of a man who looked like an older you around his neck and called your name right after waking up.”

Erwin nodded blankly.

“And released the wrath of hell in the laboratory they kept him in.”

Erwin just made some sort of movement with his head.

“And then completely disappeared, and now the MPs want to use you as a bait to catch him.”      

This time, Erwin just sighed and passed a tired hand on his face. In front of him, at a distance that was definitely impinging on what he visualized as his own personal space, Hanji blinked a dozen times at him at an alarming speed and suddenly jumped up in the air with a smile that was way too broad to feel comfortable to look at.

“This is the most exciting thing I have ever heard!” the cadet exclaimed with a high-pitched voice, and Erwin looked up in panic.

“Hush!” he hissed, frantically looking around him to see if anyone had heard them. Hanji immediately took the hint and fell silent, a sheepish expression on the face. But when it was clear that the overly excited scream hadn’t had any other effect than scaring a couple of horses, Erwin let his shoulders drop and sighed heavily again.

“Do I have to make you promise not to tell anyone about this?”

“Eeeeh not even Mike and Nanaba?”

“No. I don’t even know why I told you in the first place, to be honest.”

Hanji looked sort of offended for a moment, but quickly relaxed and grinned widely and winked at him.

“My my, it’s going to be hard to keep this to myself, but if you keep me updated I should be able to do that.”

Erwin rolled his eyes and shook his head with an exasperated groan, but couldn’t help a smile forming on his lips when his friend then started babbling about the whole thing, jumping from one theory to another without transition, even dropping a “Are you sure you are really humane, Erwin?” at some point with squinted eyes before bursting out laughing at the blonde’s frown and landing a good slap on his back.

“Erwin, Commander Shadis wants to see you,” a quiet deep voice suddenly announced behind him, and the young man quickly turned around to find Mike standing at the stables’ opened doors. The tall man’s features were drowned in the shadows of his bangs, but Erwin could still see the question dancing in his eyes. After a short moment, Hanji slowly retracted and stood up, letting the blonde get to his feet while watching him with concerned eyes, the previously almost childish excitement fading away to let place to a slightly worried look. Erwin smiled reassuringly at his friend, who then immediately beamed back at him and shoved him a bit on the chest.

“You don’t forget me, okay? You promised.”

“I promised nothing, and no one can possibly forget you, Hanji,” the young man laughed back, and was rewarded by a pout and another punch. He caught Mike watching at them curiously a few meters away, but the man eventually shrugged and just stepped aside when Erwin walked out, sniffing in sharply when he went past him.

“Am I scared, Mike?” the young man couldn’t help but ask, half-jokingly but also half-serious. The giant just shrugged back at him, a faint smile on his lips.

“Do you have a reason to be scared?”

Erwin blinked a couple of times at these words, before diverting his eyes and tilting his head slightly, pondering.

“That is actually a really good question, Mike.”

 

*

 

_“Sir!”_

_ARMIN’s sudden beeping would have made Erwin jump awake if he hadn’t been sleeping, and probably at least startle if he hadn’t felt so numb lately. Instead, the man just barely turned his head toward the screen next to his bed that had suddenly lit up with the young face the engineers had given the computer._

_“It’s the middle of the night, ARMIN, what do you want?”_

_“My sensors show that you weren’t sleeping, sir, but I do apologize for interrupting your thoughts. I just got a transmission and thought that I should share it with you immediately. It is from Lieutenant Levi.”_

_At these words, Erwin immediately sat up, completely and fully alert, and stared at ARMIN with wide eyes. He could feel his heart accelerating to an alarming pace in his chest, pounding loudly in his ears, but forced himself to calm down a bit before speaking again._

_“Right. Let me hear it.”_

_At first, only electrical cracklings resounded in the silent room, and Erwin absently started to fidget with the side of his blanket. Then, after what felt like an eternity, Levi’s voice finally spoke up, deformed and heavily covered by statics._

_“Whe – uck – an – hear – MIN – shit – oken – ygen – damn – not – die – rwin –”_

_The speakers then crackled a bit more before going completely off, plunging the room in a heavy silence again. Erwin felt his heartbeat speed up as his brain worked to get the sense of the cut out sentences he just heard, but ARMIN’s voice rose almost immediately after the end of the transmission and shifted his focus back on it._

_“I do believe that the Lieutenant’s sensors are heavily damaged, sir, and his radio seems to have died soon after I got this.”_

_“Can you still locate him?”_

_For several and too long seconds, Erwin could only hear the pounding of his heart, filling the deafening silence of his room._

_“I am working on it, sir. But the calculus will take some time, and I am afraid that his oxygen supply will run out before we can send someone to get him.”_

_“How long?”_

_“Maybe half an hour, if he saves it.”_

_Panic surged through Erwin’s veins at the horribly short time estimation, but he forced himself to take a deep breath and willed the agitated clouds in his mind to clear off and let him think._

_“Teleport him.”_

_“Excuse me, sir?”_

_“If you find Levi, teleport him back to the ship. We don’t have time to send out a rescue party.”_

_“With all my due respect, sir, given the Lieutenant’s most probable health state it is not safe to use teleportation –”_

_“If you don’t, he dies. If you do, he can still be saved, right?”_

_The computer stayed silent for a moment, and Erwin could feel his patience fraying away like fragile threads with every second._

_“This is indeed correct,” ARMIN eventually replied, but the blond man still caught an edge of uncertainty in his voice. “But the odds are still very low, and I am not sure that – ”_

_“Low is better than zero,” Erwin cut off sharply. “Find him and teleport him back to the ship.”_

_“Yes s – ” The ethereal voice then suddenly paused, and Erwin shot his head up in surprise._

_“ARMIN?” he called, but was only met with an electrical silence. After a couple of seconds, the man slowly reached up and poked the screen with a finger. “ARMIN? Answer me.” The face on the screen didn’t move, and Erwin felt panic starting crawling through his veins again. What was ARMIN doing? Was there a problem in his circuits, should Erwin call someone to go through the system and fix the problem urgently? They only had less than half an hour, it was the worst time to have a computer breakdown, half an hour, thirty minutes –_

_ARMIN’s face suddenly disappeared from the screen, and a grill of space coordinates appeared with a pop in its place._

_“Target located. Coordinates locked.” the computer’s voice rose again, emotionless, and a series of number scrolled on the screen at a speed too high to be actually read. And then, after a few seconds, two words finally appeared in bold characters in the centre of the screen._

_“Teleportation engaged.”_

*

 

“This guy is giving me the creeps.”

“I know right, his friends just died and not a single tear!”

“I heard that he was a criminal before Commander Erwin enrolled him in the Legion.”

“What, you sure? My cousin told me that he’s the result of experiments secretly run by the Military Police.”

“Your cousin is nuts, Charles, everyone knows it.”

“Hey, it’s still better than your heretic theory, what’s with that angel thing – ”

“Holy fuck shut up you all!”

The small group of cadets suddenly fell silent and watched with wary eyes as the short man walked past them, barely giving them a look under his constantly sleepy looking eyes before disappearing inside the building.

“Meeh, creepy.”

“But you guys have to admit he’s awesome in battle – ”

“Oh, watch the fangirl coming again.”

“No but seriously, I mean –”

“Is something wrong, cadets?”

The teenagers all jumped in surprise in almost perfect synchronization, turned back expecting a normal sized human being and had the surprise to be faced with a broad chest instead. After a short second of surprise, they all looked up slowly like a flock of baby birds and quickly pulled into a not very straight salute, some of them seemingly shrinking at sight under Mike’s expressionless eyes.

“S – Sir!”

“Is there anything worrying you?”

The cadets frantically looked at each other with wide panicked eyes, twitching their lips and wiggling their eyebrows in various ways in the universal “You speak! No you!” sign.

“N – no, sir, we were just talking about… er well, about things.”

“Things?”

“Yes, sir. Things.”

This time, everyone squinted at the young girl who had spoken for them, who was now displaying a very bright and confident smile at their captain, even if they all knew that she was probably on the verge of peeing herself inside. Mike just stared back at her with a slightly raised eyebrow, and cast his eyes over the group of teenagers before finally turning away and leaving with a dismissive shrug.

“This guy is fucking weird too,” a cadet then whispered, when he was sure that he was out of the captain’s earshot.

“You shouldn’t speak like that, I’m sure he could _smell_ it from a kilometre away.”

“Guys, you really aren’t funny.”

“Oh, come on Petra, don’t tell me you don’t think he’s a scary weirdo.”

“We are all scary weirdos on some level, Ralf.”

“She has a point.”

“Oh my God, not you too Erd?”

“Hey you, what are you doing lazying around? Squad Leader Nanaba just called for all new cadets to come to the training field!”

The teenagers all produced some sort of complaining shrieks, which only made the officer throw out a flow of insults at them and hush them towards the general direction of the equipment storage with angry gestures. From his window, Erwin watched as the group disappeared behind a building, a small amused smile floating on his lips.

“The rumours are getting weirder and weirder, just so you know.”

The blond man managed to keep himself from starting too obviously at the sudden voice and presence that had appeared behind him, and slightly turned around, just enough to catch Levi standing by the door, arms crossed over his chest and his usual passively annoyed expression placated all over his face.

“So they are really not getting any closer to the truth?” Erwin smirked.

“Depends on what truth you are thinking about.”

The dark bitterness that showed through Levi’s tone made Erwin’s smile instantly disappear, and the man completely turned around to face him.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

Erwin barely had the time to frown before Levi suddenly set in motion and crossed the distance separating them and just stood there, staring at him from underneath with his narrow grey eyes. His shiny, ageless, narrow grey eyes.

“So it’s still not working?” Erwin whispered, and Levi shook his head. After a moment, the shorter man lowered his eyes and leaned forward, landing his head right on Erwin’s chest, right above his heart.

“It’s strange, you know. I care. I’m hurt. I’m sad. But it feels like replaying the same track again and again. It’s here but it’s not completely real either.”

Erwin softly wrapped his arms around Levi’s small frame, slowly stroking his silken dark hair with one hand. He could feel his own heart beating steadily in his chest, strong and proof that he was alive, and he knew that Levi was listening to it too, his whole body relaxed as if he was ready to fall asleep, as if Erwin’s heartbeat was the most beautiful lullaby he had ever heard; as if the steady beating was a song that reminded him of old and ancient times, of a world only him could remember.

And Erwin knew that it was the case, somehow.

“We’ll figure it out.”

“What for? Aren’t emotions a burden in our situation?”

“Do you really think so?”

Levi pulled away slowly and looked up at the blond man with thoughtful eyes.

“It’s just facts, Erwin.” He paused for a second, and then settled back in his previous position with a quiet sigh. “Feelings got you killed. They got both of us killed.”

 

*

 

 _But it wasn't yet sufficient; there was just one thing he wasn't able to do_ _  
And that was the program known as a "heart"_

*

 

Hélène looked carefully around her, meeting eyes with every single one of the aging people sitting in a row three steps above her, long enough to tell them that she wasn’t impressed, but not enough to make them feel threatened. She knew how the Council perceived the military and their opinion over how the money that didn’t end in their already obnoxiously full pockets was spent; and even though she despised with violence every single one of the judging old elite facing her, she also knew that the red orb around her neck didn’t give her anything near the power they held on public affairs. And private and secret affairs too, for that matter.

The High Counsellor snorted and snickered spitefully, making a point in looking down at her from his high position, right next to the Throne.

“Commander Châtelain, you were the one who first gave permission for your researchers to run tests on him. Don’t you think that it’s a little… _hypocritical_ to talk about ethics now?”

“With all my due respect, Counsellor, you have misunderstood my saying. I am not here to talk about morale, as I am convinced that His Highness has a very keen sense of justice way superior to our own, and doesn’t need a soldier to tell him what is right and what is wrong.” Hélène paused and glanced at the old monarch silently sitting on his massive throne, who had been looking back and forth between her and his Council since the beginning of the meeting with cloudy and confused eyes. Even from several meters away, it hardly took a genius to figure out that the King was still under the influence of some drugs. The MP had to clench her fists behind her back to keep a disgusted and angry expression from making its way to her face. “I am merely here to remind His Highness that regardless of all ethics matters concerning Captain Levi, our own technologies are not advanced enough to understand his inner workings. Therefore –”

“So you are agreeing with the fact that _it_ is dangerous!” a nearly bald man exclaimed with a victorious smirk. Hélène breathed in sharply, clenching her teeth briefly before forcing herself to relax and speak again.

“What I am saying, Governor, is that _he_ is an absolutely unique being, and that given his exploits in the Legion, it would be very unwise of us to risk losing him on Counsellor Auguste’s idea, and I am not even talking about all the other lives that would probably have to be wasted in the process.”

“Who cares about a few dozens of people, spend the money we give you for something useful for once,” a woman with features similar to that of an eagle then hissed. “What are a hundred peasants’ lives when you could create an army of invincible soldiers?”

The vehemence of the counsellor’s words hit Hélène like a particularly violent punch, and she had to summon a good amount of her will not to step back in front of it. The intervention deeply worried her though, since Lady Chase usually was a rather quiet and passive person, and was the only one who Hélène had hoped would see the insanity of the idea in the assembly.

“I do agree that being in possession of even a small group of fighters like Levi would surely greatly increase our chances of defeating the Titans, but –”

“Who talked about defeating the freaking Titans?” Lady Chase snarled, making Hélène flinch in surprise. “Why do you think we called you and not the guy from the Legion? Do you really think that we would waste even more of our money by throwing them right in the mouths of the Titans?”

“I – I apologize my Lady, but I don’t entirely follow y –”

“Look, that’s why I don’t trust the military,” a man suddenly said, seemingly to his neighbour but clearly loud enough so Hélène would hear him. “Just a bunch of incapables. Do you know how much I lost because of little thugs robbing my estate this month? And the MP can’t even catch the fuckers.”

The counsellor’s neighbour nodded thoughtfully, and before Hélène could place another word, the assembly suddenly irrupted in an incoherent hubbub of complaints and insults and fingers pointed at her, accusing, condemning.

“Silence!” the High Counsellor yelled, and everyone almost instantly stopped, turning around to look at him, eyes slightly dilated and breaths held in some sort of anticipation. The silence felt almost electrical, and Hélène couldn’t shake off the feeling that they knew what was coming and had been looking forward to it, and that she was clearly not going to like it. But the man didn’t make the effort to speak immediately, taking the time to slowly hover his eyes over the assembly, then looked straight at Hélène, his pale eyes seemingly piercing through her like daggers.

“Commander Châtelain,” he began slowly, his voice resonating through the completely silent and still room and echoing against the heavily ornamented walls. “I am very sorry to observe this, but it appears that your way of thinking isn’t in agreement with the Crown anymore. As the head of the interior Military Police, this situation is very unfortunate, and I am at the regrets to say that I have to dismiss you from your functions.”

“About time!” the Governor exclaimed, but was quickly silenced by a glare from the High Counsellor. Down the stairs, Hélène was completely frozen in shock, staring back with wide eyes at the man’s blank expression, her brain slowly processing what he had just said.

“I – I’m sorry High Counsellor,” she then started before pausing and coughing to get rid of the shaking and uncertainty in her voice, “but dismissing and appointing high-ranking officers is hardly your jurisdiction –”

She then suddenly stopped when the Counsellor leaned forward and started whispering something in the King’s ears. After a few seconds, the monarch nodded absently and heavily leaned on the arms of his throne to stand up, all his limbs clearly shaking under the effort.

“C – Commander Hélène Ch- Chaté – Châtel –” he started hesitantly, and paused and nodded again when his counsellor breathed a few words at him. “ – Châtelain, you are accused of treason against the Crown, and I hereby dismiss you from your grade of Commander of the interior Military Police and condemn you to a life time of jail.”

“Seize her!”

And before Hélène could even react, two guards were by her side and violently grabbed her arms, making her unable to fight back – not that she was in the state of fighting back anyway. Her brain was still trying to get some sense out of what just happened, and she barely felt the guards pulling her back, dragging her out of the throne room, out of the highly-lit and overly decorated corridors of the palace, down a cold flight of stairs, down to a place of oblivion and darkness. But before the heavy wooden doors of the room closed on her, Hélène still managed to catch a few sentences that kept her awake and screaming for the rest of her last days.

“A life time of jail?”

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s just for the appearance, who knows what could happen down there.”

“Never liked her. Not enough leverage on people like her, with ideals and all. Should have done that way earlier and put that guy with the barmaid at her place. Heard they were going to have their second kid. Smart lad I would say too, enough to know his place.”

“This whole family never learned just to obey anyway.”

“I know right? All plotting against the Crown, how dare they?”

And as the mad laugh of the counsellors rang again and again in Hélène’s brain, long after they turned into muffled whispers in this room of secrets and murders, a messenger left the stables of the Palace and rode down the streets of Sina until he reached the gates of the Military Police’s HQ, and walked straight to the training field behind the building.

“Captain Nile Dawk?”

The man turned around in surprise, and stared in confusion at the boy wearing a cape displaying the herald of the Royal Family on its front and back.

“Yes?”

The boy looked at him from head to toe, as if assessing if he was saying the truth, then started turning away, gesturing at Nile to follow him.

“The King’s Council requests your presence immediately.”

 

 

           

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cookies for who guessed the song 8D  
> Aaaaaand thank you all for reading and for the kudos! <3  
> (Also you can expect more time gaps. Like. A lot of them. *hit*)


	3. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before anyone kills me that's not the last you'll see of this old man.  
> NOT REALLY.

_The first miracle was that you were born_  
 _The second miracle was the time spent with you_  
 _The third miracle has not yet... the third miracle still..._

*

 

“No, I can’t do this,” Jean whimpered, head heavily falling on his desk. A short second later, he felt a scroll of paper painfully colliding with the back of his head, and most definitely didn’t let out a pitiful whine at all.

“Stop complaining and sign these papers,” Armin’s annoyed voice came from across the table, followed by the hated sound of a big stack of papers falling in front of him.

“I didn’t ask or this life,” Jean moaned. “Have some respect for my pain.”

“If you don’t sit back in your chair within three seconds I’m going to accidentally spill your coffee on your head.” The threat apparently had its effect, because Jean let out another very undignified sound and shot back up against the wooden chair, as straight as a broom. He could almost feel the metaphorical little holes Armin’s eyes were piercing in his body.

“Now, _Commander_ ,” the blond man said, accentuating heavily on the last word, “will you please sign these papers? I have to go check the new trainees in an hour.”

“Sure, mom,” Jean mumbled, and reluctantly grabbed the first file on the top of the pile. “Jeez, Eren and Mikasa truly rubbed off on you, didn’t they,” he muttered with a sigh, and immediately regretted it. He saw his friend twitch slightly at the mention of his best friends, but the blonde didn’t comment.

“Just sign,” he simply ordered, a bit too sharply.

_Idiot_ , Jean mentally chastened himself. _What a great diplomacy for the guy who’s supposed to be the Commander._ He whispered a “sorry”, but Armin didn’t reply, just standing across the desk, waiting for him to finish scanning the files and signing them. _Uncomfortable silence, great._

“Levi came to report some time ago,” Jean suddenly said, blurting out the first thing that came to his mind to break the heavy silence. He saw Armin frown slightly from the corner of his eyes, but didn’t fully look up at him, still focused on his papers. Or at least trying to give the impression that he was focused.

“I know, I saw him when I got up here,” Armin replied quietly. Another silence settled between them, but the previously heavy tension had lightened a bit. Jean blindly stared at the paragraph he had been reading for the third time without really registering what it said, and finally let it go and sighed.

“Do you think he hates me?” he asked, passing a hand on his face with tiredness.

“If he hated you, he wouldn’t have let you sit on this chair,” Armin simply replied. Jean pondered the answer for a moment, absently playing with the green orb of his necklace. It wasn’t the first time they had this exchange, but he never felt like he ever got anywhere each time.

“It still feels fucking weird,” the sandy-haired man stated, before falling silent for a few seconds. “I… sometimes feel like a… a thief.”

“You are not.”

“I know, but…” Jean carefully took the necklace off and lifted it above his head. He fell back in his chair, and looked at the orb lightly shining in the sun light, Armin’s face in its background. “Do I really deserve this?”

“I think you do. Levi thinks you do.”

Jean chuckled and let his hand drop on the desk, the green stone tinkling when it collided with the wooden surface.

“Marco would also think that you do.”

Jean snapped his eyes at the blonde, and stared at him, surprised. Armin calmly held his gaze, and shook his head sadly after a moment.

“We have all lost loved ones in that expedition, or even before that. It’s already a miracle we are still enough to even function as a division after that bloodbath.”

“And I’m the captain of that wrecked ship,” Jean snickered without humour.

“What I meant,” the blonde continued, not paying attention to the comment, “is that we all decided to trust you with this function. You are a natural leader, Jean, even Commander Erwin said so.”

“Yeah, and look at where it got him,” the sandy-haired man mumbled. The blonde didn’t reply, his eyes falling on something outside the window. Jean stared at him and turned back to see what he was looking at, but there was nothing in the yard. Just dust and sand.

“I was there when Erwin died,” the blonde’s voice came back quietly.

“So was I,” Jean whispered back. He could still see with horribly vivid precision their leader standing high in a tree, unable to fight because of his missing arm but still supervising the battle from up there. He remembered him shouting orders and warnings, and they had been the only reason Jean had managed to survive so far in the carnage. And then he remembered seeing with horror a strange small Titan climbing like a fury at the tree their Commander was standing in, and he heard Levi yell Erwin’s name and their Captain passed in front of him at incredible speed, rushing towards the deviant Titan. But it was already too late. Jean saw Erwin’s eyes widen with surprise when the Titan jumped next to him, and suddenly the branch cracked and broke, and Levi was still too far away, and the Titan managed to grab Erwin in its fall. They fell somewhere out of Jean’s sight, but the young man still remembered the horrible scream that had rung out among the trees shortly after, and even now he still couldn’t distinguish the dying Titan from Levi’s cry. He remembered how he had childishly put his hands on his ears at that, blocking out the outside world for a short moment, a short moment that would have cost him his life if Armin hadn’t grabbed him and threw him out of the reach of a Titan lurking at him.

“Have you noticed that Levi has been asking to be sent on more and more missions? And always volunteers for the most dangerous ones?” Armin suddenly asked, tearing Jean out from his day-nightmare. The sandy-haired man blinked at him, and frowned.

“Yes, it’s almost like he’s trying to get himself killed or something. It was a close call this time, apparently,” he replied, the words barely leaving his mouth that something ticked in his head. He snapped his eyes up at Armin, and the blond man only stared back at him sadly.

“You can’t be serious,” Jean let out in a breath, the sudden realization still keeping his eyes in a ridiculous size. Armin sighed heavily, and let himself fall down in the chair across from Jean.

“I’m not even sure he’s doing it on purpose, or if he actually realizes it. I don’t think it would change anything if he did, though.”

They both stayed silent for a long moment, thinking about the dark-haired short man who never smiled. Jean couldn’t help but feel a pang of pain whenever he thought about the list of casualties that had ended on his desk soon after his flash-appointment as Commander. The expedition had been a catastrophe. Not only had they lost most of their troops, but also almost the entirety of the officers. Jean had lost countless friends and comrades. But he still had Armin.

Levi had lost everything.

“Do you think he developed a fault?” Armin suddenly asked. Jean blinked at him a few times, then silently shook his head.

“What kind of fault? You read the files as much as I did. He was made to be perfect. The Wings of Freedom impersonated.”

“But he cared.”

“Yes.”

They both stayed silent a long time again.

“Do you think it was supposed to happen?”

“What?”

“Him caring.”

“Maybe not.”

A silence fell again, and Jean absently hovered his eyes over the large desk. Traces of the past Commanders were still lingering here and there, ink stains that never got off carefully hidden by convenient stacks of papers, nervous meaningless carvings that still made Jean accidentally pierce through his papers when he got the infortune of pressing down too hard on his pen at the wrong moment and at the wrong place.

“Do you think he regrets it?”

Armin didn’t answer for a long while, eyes lost somewhere in the vicinity of his hands.

“I don’t know, Jean. I don’t know.”

 

*

 

_“How are you feeling?”_

_“How do you think I am feeling, fuckhead?”_

_Erwin’s worried frown immediately relaxed when he took notice that Levi was now kicking enough to insult him again. His lips then followed the movement without really consulting his brain and curled up into a wide relieved grin._

_“I missed you calling me names, Levi,” the blonde laughed, which only caused the other man to raise his eyebrows at improbable heights and stare at him with bewildered eyes._

_“Don’t tell me you finally went completely nuts while I was out, I’m going to feel like I failed my life.”_

_Erwin just chuckled more, then leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Levi, pulling him in a careful tight hug. He felt the shorter man tense at first, but then quickly relax and let his head softly fall on Erwin’s shoulder. The blond man buried his face in Levi’s neck, breathing in deeply and just enjoying his smell and heat against him again, alive, so completely alive and awake._

_“I missed you,” he breathed, and Levi just hummed back in response._

_The past few days had been horrible. Levi was barely breathing when ARMIN teleported him in the nursery, and the following hours had been a roller-coaster of the computer informing Erwin of his Lieutenant’s impending trespassing and suddenly changing his mind and telling him that he still had a slight chance of waking up. It had been the hardest thing Erwin’s nerves had ever been through, and God knew how much stress he went by on a daily basis._

_He had come to visit Levi regularly during his coma, and still had nightmares of his cadaveric pale skin from which countless electric wires and pipes with colourless liquids departed and linked him to the computer, putting him on the fragile thread of ARMIN’s calculus to survive._

_When he closed his eyes, Erwin could still hear the screen monitoring Levi’s heartbeat beeping so slowly, sometimes stopping for so long that he had started seeing stars when holding his breath, waiting for the next beep, waiting for something to tell him that Levi was still there._

_Erwin could still remember every single second of the wait._

_And he tightened his grip on Levi’s thin frame, swearing never to see him in a situation like this ever again, but also knowing that the only way he could make sure that it didn’t happen again wasn’t an option and never had been._

*

 

“Levi, can I talk to you?”

The short man didn’t even make the effort to turn his head.

“Nile Dawk.”

He heard a deep sigh at his left, but still didn’t look at the MP.

“When will you be able to say my name without making it sound like an insult?”

This time, Levi turned his head and stared at the man with what he considered as being his best judgmental look. He had had countless occasions to try it on everyone around him, and was rather proud of the effect it could have, especially on the new recruits. Nile wasn’t a newbie though, and didn’t let himself be impressed by Levi’s death glare. Too bad.

“When will you stop being a fucking coward and do something about that fucked up situation we live in?” the short man then snarled back in response, hoping to make the words as painful as possible, and had the distant satisfaction of seeing a dark cloud shadowing Nile’s features.

“I have people I care about, asshole, but that’s probably not something you know about,” the other immediately snapped back with a venomous tone; and despite everything, Levi didn’t manage to hide the fact that the insinuation had hit him right where it hurt, and his fists clenched on the untouched mug of beer he was holding, making it crack open and yellowish liquid splash everywhere on the table and on his clothes. He swore silently, but didn’t break eye contact with Nile, just keeping shooting daggers at him and deflecting the ones the other man cast at him.

“Hey, you, I don’t want any trouble in my place, so if you have things to settle do it somewhere else,” a voice suddenly called from the bar, and the two soldiers diverted their eyes at the same time to glare at the bartender, who couldn’t help but yelp and step back, the severity on his face melting down into something much closer to fear. But as the poor lad was seriously wondering if his bladder would be able to hold so much stress, Nile sighed and lifted his hands in front of him apologetically.

“Sorry, pal, we’ll be going now, right Levi?” he answered, casting a dark and severe look at the shorter man who just raised an eyebrow at him, unimpressed, and shrugged.

“Yeah, sorry for the trouble,” Levi stood up and threw a piece of silver at the bartender in the same movement. Nile couldn’t help but feel impressed when the coin made a perfect parabola and landed right in the ashtray in front of the man. “For the mug. Have a good day.” And on these words, Levi walked straight to the door and stepped outside without looking back. After a second of hesitation, Nile quickly followed him, sending a vague goodbye to the bartender and apology to the customers that were still looking at him with confused and slightly frightened eyes on his way. Once he stepped outside, he frantically looked around and almost missed the pair of wings disappearing in a back alley a few meters away. Nile just took the time to sigh deeply before setting into motion and walking resolutely to the little street, and wasn’t surprised when he saw Levi leaning on a wall, half hidden in the shadows, waiting for him.

Nile stepped closer to him, but still stopped at a safe distance.

“I’m sorry for what I said earlier. It was inconsiderate,” he offered after a moment, even if he was still pissed and didn’t completely feel like apologizing. Levi just nodded at him slightly, accepting his apology, but didn’t offer one in return. Nile felt his blood boiling a bit again, but he took a deep breath and resolutely stepped forward, closing the distance between them, and even leaned forward to make sure that Levi could hear him without him having to speak too loudly.

“Levi, the Council is running out of patience.”

The shorter man raised an eyebrow.

“What, these old fuckers are still trying to get in my pants? Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not some cheap whore you can spread open for one cent.”

“I’m not joking, Levi,” Nile replied harshly, not commenting further on the other man’s sarcastic answer. “Erwin had made a good job delaying their attempts of carrying their project out, but he’s not here anymore.” He paused for a moment, noticing the twitch on Levi’s lips at the mention of his former Commander, but still carried on, severe. “And Jean doesn’t even really know the truth, he can’t protect you.”

“I don’t need _protection_ ,” Levi hissed, almost imperceptibly.

“The criminal rate in the Capital has been soaring these last few years, Levi. They are ready to use force to get you. They are pretty determined.”

“Tch.” Levi snorted. “Catch me if you can.”

“We did once.”

“You didn’t do anything. I came only because of Erwin.”

Nile would have missed the slight quavering in Levi’s voice if he hadn’t been looking for it, but he didn’t comment; he himself couldn’t help but feel his heart sink a little every time someone mentioned the passed away blond man. The Scouting Legion had lost a respected and competent leader; Levi had lost a lover; but Nile had also lost a dear friend.

“Do you regret that it started working?” the man suddenly asked in a whisper. Levi instantly snapped his head at him, frowning, suspicious, but his fierce expression quickly faded and he lowered his eyes again.

“How many people know about it, seriously?” he snickered without humour.

“Now? Just me.”

“You haven’t spitted it yet to your dear Council?”

Nile couldn’t keep a hurt expression from appearing on his face, and he frowned deeply at the short man.

“I don’t care that the truth about you is one of the best guarded secrets of the Crown. They are keeping so many that you are just another fish in the ocean anyway.” Nile was himself surprised by how low his voice was. He was almost rumbling. “What I care about is that you were _Erwin_ ’s biggest secret, and he didn’t want me to tell anyone else.”

“And now, would you risk your family’s life to keep the Council convinced that I am just a killing machine?”

Nile flinched at the mention of his wife and children, but then his features closed even more and his expression darkened.

“No. But I’m not the one who will break it out.”

“What?”

Nile sighed and passed a tired hand on his face, allowing himself a few seconds of rest before facing Levi again.

“Look, I still think it’s your best chance. The Council is _really_ determined to get their hands on you, and you can’t escape them forever. There are just that many places to hide within the walls.” Levi stayed silent, waiting for him to continue. “If you convince them that you are as humane as them, maybe they will let you go. Besides, the King lost his wife recently, and his father died not so many years ago, so there are chances that he will be sensitive to that.”

Levi looked at him thoughtfully for a long moment before his voice rose again, hard and bitter.

“How many times have you repeated this to your mirror to convince yourself?” he spat, every word as sharp as a razor blade. At first, Nile blinked a few times at him, confused, then anger started boiling in his veins and he clenched his fist.

“I’m just trying to help you, you little shit!”

But the words didn’t come out nearly as vehemently that he had intended them to be; deep inside, Nile knew that it was a hollow hope. The Council wouldn’t stop at something as petty to their eyes as humane feelings, but Nile had hoped that he could have found a solution to this situation.

He had hoped that he could fix things without taking risks, without taking the path of the heroes; a path that he knew could only end in blood and tears, a path that he had desperately avoided since he had met Marie.

And that he was still not willing to take.

“I’m going to do it.”

Nile shot his eyes at Levi in surprise, and the shorter man just returned his gaze calmly, his expression suddenly so far away from the constantly annoyed one that he usually carried around.

“They say that you can’t achieve great things without sacrifices, right? I’m going to run with their shitty plan, take me to the Council.”

And strangely, it was only at that moment that Nile fully realized that Levi really was different, a being coming from another world and another time, ancient and forever, who had seen things Nile could barely even start to imagine, and who would probably keep on witnessing the flow of History long after he himself was gone. And from behind the strange mist that had suddenly settled in his mind, Nile distantly set his neck muscles in motion and nodded numbly, seemingly not physically able to tear his gaze away from Levi’s ageless face.

And then someone shouted above them, and Nile could only feel something hit him from behind and notice the dirty pavement rushing towards his face with a distant confusion before everything went completely dark.

 

 

 


	4. Chapter Three

 

People were screaming, somewhere, next to him, in the distance, everywhere.

And there were other voices too, deep voices who answered to higher ones, commenting over one thing or another, then shutting up and raising again after another scream tore through the silence.

Levi distantly thought that he should care.

But really, he didn’t give a fuck.

Somewhere far away, or very close, or in his own head, a strident alarm was blaring through his ears, a red line of pain piercing right through him and tearing the thin veil between reality and memories.

_He was on Ark Rose._

_Erwin was screaming something over his head. What was he saying? It sounded important. It sounded like orders. Were they directed to him? Levi wanted to turn his head to look at him, but he couldn’t feel his body. Was he dead? Maybe he was dead._

_Erwin’s face appeared in front of his eyes, but he looked kind of blurry, as if standing on the other side of a waterfall. Levi wanted to tell him that his eyes looked even bluer than usual._

_“Stay here. I love you.”_

_And then Erwin was gone, and the world went black again._

*

 

“Jean, are you sure you know what you are doing?”

“For fuck’s sake Armin, can’t you just fucking _shut up_ for _one fucking second_?”

Jean immediately heard the footsteps next to him sharply come to a stop, and he didn’t have to turn around to know that Armin was most probably wearing that creepy silent judgemental look that always made Jean feel like the worst of shits and want to apologize to the universe. Sometimes, the young man found himself wondering with a sigh where the kid he had first met with the shy and sheepish smile had gone, but another part of him knew that it was a stupid question. He himself had stopped being the guy who just wanted to crawl into somewhere safe and shut his eyes on the world’s problems for a long long time. They had gone through too much pain, too many tragedies.

And another one was playing right at the moment, and Jean wanted to scream and kick something because he had no idea how to stop it, and he hated feeling so powerless, he hated just standing there and waiting for someone to tell him that another person he cared for had died, just waiting to turn around and find a new body on top of the already too high mountain of bloody corpses.

“Jean, calm down.”

The young man tensed and seriously considered just turning around and letting his nerves go off on Armin, but in the end the feeling didn’t last and faded out as quickly as it had appeared, and Jean just stared at the desert street in front of him with an empty look.

“Do I really have a choice anyway?” he eventually whispered, and he heard Armin stepping closer to him and placing a hand on his shoulders without a word. “These fuckers are playing on the population’s fears to make the horrors they’re committing look like heroism.” The young man then noticed a dirty paper crumbled on the floor a couple of meters ahead of him, and stomped forward to grab it and read it before turning around and almost throwing it at Armin’s face with a furious movement.

“ _“Criminality has soared again under the incompetent eyes of the Police. Will you let your children grow up in this unsafe world? Volunteer to save your family!”_ Who the fuck do they think they are kidding?” Jean exploded, and tore the Crown’s announcement in tiny bits with rage, not even trying to stop the flow of insults freely leaving his mouth with a few angry grunts. When the paper was properly reduced to unreadable shreds, Jean threw them on the floor and stomped on them until he felt like all his energy had left him again, forcing him to stagger to the closest wall and lean heavily against it, his head spinning madly under a veil of red.

“We need to get out the walls,” the young man whimpered. “Or we are going to rip each other apart before long.”

“That’s why you have to convince them to hand the new soldiers to us.”

Jean started when he heard Armin’s calm voice way closer to his ear than he had expected him to be, and then completely froze when his words sunk in his brain.

“What?”

He stared with bewildered eyes at his friend’s blank expression. Armin sighed quietly and passed a hand on his face before looking up at him again.

“What they are doing is inhumane, I am aware of that. But they _are_ doing it, they have already started and it’s too late to stop what they have begun. We can try to keep them from getting started on other people, but I doubt that they will listen to us. All we can do is to try to take advantage of the situation.”

Jean had to take a few seconds to gather his spirits, and made a few vague gestures and frowned and looked away and at Armin several times before he managed to speak again.

“Are you fucking suggesting that we let them torture these people and wait for the rests like fucking rats? Is this all what the fucking Scouting Legion has become?”

“God, Jean!” Armin exclaimed, and even with his armour of angry adrenaline, Jean couldn’t help but take a step backwards, head on struck by the force in his friend’s voice. “Have you even looked at the state of our ranks lately? We lost almost all the veterans in the last expedition, we have less and less money coming in and three-quarters of our soldiers are newbies with ill-maintained equipment! And they got Levi!”

Jean barely dared to blink when Armin paused to take a deep breath, some sort of survival instinct stirring inside of him and telling him that it was one of the moments where he had all interests to keep his big mouth shut. So he stayed silent while Armin breathed in and out to calm down, mouth slightly gaping and not daring to move a single toe.

“But this can be our advantage, Jean. It’s kind of strange, actually, but at the last session twenty-five trainees chose to join us, among the forty-six of the Squad. It’s the highest number we have registered for years! Somehow, I feel like that the new generation has really started to understand that our only hope lays outside the walls, that we can’t survive by shutting ourselves inside this cage and pretend that everything is fine. Besides, the Council is claiming that Levi volunteered to attract more people, they are using his name and it’s working. And we can use it against them, Jean. They want to use the soldiers for their own comfort, but they are forgetting that Levi is _our_ emblem. He is one of _us_. He is the heart of the Scouting Legion. He is our wings.”

“The Wings of Freedom,” Jean echoed in a whisper, and he let the words hang between them for a long moment, a promise lingering in the silence of Sina, waiting.

And then Jean suddenly stood up resolutely, taking off from the wall he had slumped against, and firmly placed his hands on Armin’s shoulders.

“The Wings of Freedom,” he repeated, and Armin just nodded at him, smiling softly in the golden light of the morning sun of the Capital.

 

*

 

_“Levi, are you sure you are okay?”_

_The short man frowned and glared at him with an annoyed look, but Erwin ignored it and still stepped closer to him and carefully placed a hand on his back. Levi immediately slid away and let go of the chair on which he had suddenly leaned in the middle of his report, and made a few steps towards the door, grunting that he was fine and just needed some rest._

_“Maybe you should go to the nursery and ask ARMIN to run a scan on you.”_

_Erwin saw Levi instantly tense at these words, and slowly turn around to look at him._

_“I just need to crash somewhere and it’s going to be fucking fine, stop momming me.”_

_“I’m not “momming” you, Levi, you are obviously not alright and I think that you may not have completely recovered from the teleportation. Gosh, Levi, you almost_ died _!”_

_“But I didn’t and I know better than you what the fuck my body is doing, okay?”_

_“And better than ARMIN? Why don’t you just want to let him do some scans to be sure?” It wasn’t even voluntary, but Erwin’s voice had slipped into an almost begging tone by the end of his sentence, to his own surprise and clearly Levi’s too. He saw the shorter man hesitate, and Erwin resolutely decided to seize the opportunity to push him a bit. He slowly stepped forward and Levi silently followed him with his eyes until he was standing right in front of him, and softly took both his hands in his._

_“Please, Levi, do it for me,” Erwin whispered, and he saw the anger melt away from his lover’s face, replaced by some sort of resignation._

_“Okay, okay, if you really insist.”_

_Erwin smiled softly and leaned forward to drop a kiss on Levi’s knuckles, then hushed him towards the nursery and asked him to tell ARMIN to send the results to his office when he was done._

_“Yeah, yeah, whatever, old man,” Levi mumbled, before turning away and walking down the corridor, the door of Erwin’s office quietly sliding close behind him with a muffled thud._

*

 

When Levi emerged from the darkness, a familiar figure was silently looming above him, and his instincts immediately kicked in again. He snorted.

“Dawk.”

The familiar figure rolled his eyes, and Levi distinctly heard a sigh before the face backed away from his vision field. Somehow, every single one of their conversations had always started this way, and it didn’t seem to be willing to change anytime soon.

Well, some things just didn’t change.

“And I thought that they had hit you hard enough to strike the circuit where you stock things on me. Apparently that was too much to ask.”

Levi snorted again, and sat up slowly.

“What, you think that you can just replace “asshole” with “oh marvellous and wonderful Nile Dawk” like that? My circuits are bullshitproof, fuckhead.”

“You are some living bullshit, that’s why.”

“Fuck you, Dawk.”

And they glared at each other for the umpteenth time. Both of them knew that their exchange could go on for a long time like that, but this time, neither of them really felt like keeping on their childish bickering.

“Is your left leg alright?” Nile asked after a moment. “It was kind of turned sideways when they brought you back, I tried to fix it but I’m not sure I did it right.”

At these words, Levi slightly moved his leg and shrugged, not finding anything wrong, then suddenly realized that he had no idea where they were. He frantically looked around, but it didn’t take long to get a quick picture though; dark and cold walls and a metallic door with a single little barred window that was basically the only source of light in the room.

Simple and efficient.

“Well, can’t say it’s my first time in jail,” he commented flatly.

“I wish it was something as simple as a jail,” Nile replied darkly, and Levi cast a surprised look at him. The man sighed again and passed a tired hand on his face. “We are in the underground of the Military Police’s HQ. It used to be a prison, but the Crown has recently issued orders to turn it into a research facility. This is a laboratory, Levi. And you are their VIP guest.”

The short man stared blankly at Nile for a moment, then diverted his eyes and shook his head with a sigh.

“Oh, a whole laboratory just for me? I’m honoured.”

“You can try to hide behind sarcasm, but I know you already know what’s going on out there.”

Levi shot a dark glare at Nile, but didn’t find the will to make a snarky reply. He could still hear the screams ringing in his head, and it somehow didn’t feel right to try to block them out. There were people suffering out there because he had let himself being caught. Because he was existing. Because he hadn’t died despite all the occasions where his life could have come to an end.

“Jeez, I have no idea what’s going on in your head, but you look like a condensation of dark thoughts, it’s creepy.”

Levi glanced at the other man, but didn’t comment further. After a moment, he sighed and let his head roll back to rest against the cold wall he was sitting against.

“So, what’re you doing down there?”

“Just waiting. For the moment.”

Levi turned slightly towards him, but didn’t try to think of something to say and let the conversation die again. If Nile was still here, what the Council was planning to do with him was clear enough.

“And I thought that I would be able to just live my life and slide away without getting caught in all this shit,” Nile snickered without humour after a moment. “It was Bianca’s birthday, yesterday,” he added quietly, not trying to hide the pain in his voice.

“How old?” Levi asked, and the other man smiled slightly.

“Fifteen, even if people say that she looks eighteen,” Nile replied with pride. But his features almost instantly darkened and he looked back to his feet. “If she’s still alive, that is.”

Levi didn’t comment, and just let silence fall again. He knew what kind of accidents happened to people the Council wanted to get out of the map, and they had a strong tendency to envelop all their relatives in the process too. And Nile had obviously found his way on the top of the blacklist, for keeping secrets, for keeping his secret and helping him.

“I’m sorry,” Levi offered after a moment, feeling like that it was the least he could do. The other man sighed silently and buried his face in his crossed arms.

“I want to hate you, Levi. I really do. But I can’t,” his muffled voice rose quietly. “Well, no, I’m sure I hate you to some degree, but I kind of hate everyone to some degree too, except for Marie and the kids.”

He laughed a little, bitterly, then looked up and met Levi’s eyes.

“I know you think I’m a coward, that I’m ready to put a blindfold on my eyes by myself and cover my ears with my hands if it means staying out of troubles. And you’re right, I am. I’m a fucking coward, but every time I look at my family I have absolutely no regrets of being one. But then…” He paused for a moment, his eyes getting distant, as if he was losing himself in his own world. “You know, I spent three years listening to Erwin telling his great ideas of plans to lead humanity to victory and freedom to who wanted to hear it. I spent three years dreaming on it too, and we even made plans about what we would do when we would finally be able to explore the outside world. Mike wanted to build a farm, but he also said that he was okay to come with us if we wanted to go on adventures. We were so sure that it was going to happen, the dreamy brats we were. And then Erwin told me that Mike had gone missing, and I spent nights wondering if I could have saved him if I had joined the Legion like I had planned to do all along. I blamed Erwin for convincing him to follow him, I blamed him because Mike would still be alive if he had joined the MP with me. But I knew that it was pointless and childish. Mike died for what he believed for, and that’s probably not a chance I’m going to have. I didn’t have the courage. I’m not a hero.”

Levi looked at Nile for a moment, surprised by this sudden and abundant confession, unsure of how to react, then diverted his eyes and stared absently at the small square of dim light on the door.

“You don’t need to be a hero to be brave, Nile,” he quietly said after a short while. “And you don’t need to die to be hero.”

Nile just silently looked at him with unreadable eyes, and the two men let silence settle again in their little cell, muffled screams in the distance following them into their dreams.

 

*

 

_The interface beeped a little, and Erwin promptly turned towards it with a worried look._

_“Sir, the results of the tests on Lieutenant Levi you have requested.”_

_An icon popped out on the screen, and soon a full report appeared when Erwin pressed it. The medically complicated words immediately jumped to his head and he blinked a few times, then scanned down the report to find something that was translated in a language he could understand. What did all these figures mean? Some of them looked pretty big, but was it normal? Erwin frowned and defiantly stared at the screen for a few more minutes, but when it became clear that it was a futile attempt on his part, he finally sighed and fell back in his chair with a defeated look._

_“Okay, ARMIN, can you just tell me if something’s wrong with Levi?”_

_The computer stayed silent, and Erwin frowned, worry settling in his stomach like a heavy weight._

_“ARMIN?”_

_“Eh? Ah, sorry Sir, I have been distracted.” the computer’s voice apologized. “The tests on Lieutenant Levi didn’t reveal anything wrong. He may just need a little more rest than usual.”_

_At these words, Erwin immediately felt the worried knot in his guts relax, and he sighed in relief._

_“Thank you, ARMIN.”_

_“You are welcome, sir. Have a good day.”_

*

 

“Captain Arlert, if you don’t let us through, we will be forced to put you under arrest for collaboration with murderers.”

“With all my respect, sir, these are still the barracks of the Scouting Legion, and you still have no power on these grounds.”

The MP’s frown impossibly deepened even more, and Armin could almost see little clouds of smoke going out his ears and his nostrils. The man was surely very impressive and could make people bend in front of him by just staring at them, but Armin wasn’t most people. He had seen things way scarier than Commander Fernandez, and despite his 2 metres he was just an angry peacock next to a Titan.

An angry, ridiculous peacock.

“You will regret this, Arlert! And tell your sorry ass of a Commander that I’m coming back with a warrant from the King himself!” the giant shouted, and stared down at Armin with his narrow eyes with what was probably his most intimidating glare. But as the blond man just held his gaze with the greatest calm, not a bit impressed, the MP huffed in exasperation and turned around, gesturing at his soldiers to follow him and stomped out from the Legion’s grounds. When he was sure that Fernandez was out of sight, Armin sighed heavily and passed a tired hand on his face. He had lost count of the number of times the MP had demanded to search the barracks, and he didn’t expect it to stop anytime soon. The first times, Armin had been genuinely worried that the Crown was actually going to issue a warrant for them, but as he had predicted, the Council definitely didn’t want to have anything to do with the unidentified corpses that were found at the Dawk house a few days ago. Armin sighed again, his heart suddenly feeling heavy, like every time he remembered what had happened there.

“What a dick.”

Armin jumped with a small gasp, and turned around to see Marie Dawk nonchalantly leaning against the main door leading to the administrative parts of the HQ, slowly cradling a toddler in her arms. The blond man’s features immediately softened, and he gave her a shy smile. The lady grinned back at him in response, but Armin could still see that the way her lips went up didn’t match at all the darkness in her eyes.

“How is Bianca?” he asked quietly, and Marie glanced at the stairs leading up.

“She’s sleeping. The doctor said that she couldn’t do anything else for the moment. It all depends on whether Bianca will be strong enough to heal herself.”

“I see. I’m sorry.”

Marie nodded absently, and silence settled between them, just interrupted by Adam’s quiet snores. After a moment, the lady excused herself and climbed back up to the office-turned-into-a-room Jean had given her and her kids to settle in for the moment.

Her, and her two kids.

They had had the incredible luck that Moblit was running some errands near the tavern where Levi sometimes wandered in during his free time when he had spotted a group of armed MPs jumping from roof to roof. The man had immediately felt that something was wrong, and quickly hid in the shadows before the soldiers could spot him. And then, a moment later, he had seen the MPs emerging from the back alley they had jumped in, carrying two forms with bags on their heads, but a simple gross fabric was nothing for Moblit. He had immediately recognized the two captives and ran back to the HQ to inform Armin.

As soon as Armin heard the news, his brain went into full battle mode and he called his squad, not waiting for Jean to give him permission or something. They ran straight to the Dawk house, only to find Mrs Dawk on her knees in her kitchen, blood all over her clothes and a forgotten knife next to her, trying to wrap a tissue that obviously belonged to her apron around her daughter’s head, her face a painful mix between desperation and resolution. The bodies of two men covered in black clothes were sprawled on the floor, puddles of red spreading under them.

And near the backdoor, another pool of blood leading to a much smaller body.

“Oh God,” Armin couldn’t help but breath out. “Call a doctor, quick!” he shouted, and Marie immediately shot her head at him, her face taking a threatening fierce expression and her whole body leaning forward as to make herself a human shield for her daughter. And then her eyes zoomed on the crest sewn on Armin’s uniform, and she squinted, a small doubt appearing on her face.

“We are here to help you, Mrs Dawk,” Armin slowly said, raising his hands in front of him in sign of peace. “Please follow us, you will be placed under the protection of the Scouting Legion, you and your children will be safe.”

The lady stared at him for a few seconds, assessing his true intentions, and suddenly gasped and turned her head to the backdoor.

“Luke!” she called, but at the same moment Bianca moaned painfully in her arms. The lady immediately focused back on her daughter, calling her name softly and soothing her with her hand almost instinctively, but her eyes then went back to the door, indecision drawn all over her face. And then a baby started to cry upstairs, and Armin could almost literally see Marie’s heart breaking, her face reflecting her dilemma, her dilemma of choosing which of her kids to save. Because she couldn’t save all of them by herself.

“You are not alone,” Armin declared, softly, and Marie’s eyes fell back on him again. “Let us help you, Mrs Dawk. You are not alone.”

And after a moment, Marie eventually nodded, letting Armin’s squad fetch Adam upstairs and lead them to the Scouting Legion’s barracks, through narrow and dark streets not to attract attention, Armin himself carrying Luke’s lifeless body in his arms, not willing to leave him behind.

 

“She will be fine.”

Armin jumped again, and his eyes fell this time on Jean’s face, his brain immediately registering the dark circles under his eyes and the even paler than usual complexion of his face.

“Okay, not really. I doubt she will ever be really fine after that. But she’s strong.”

“She single-handedly killed two trained assassins, Jean, that’s the least we can say”

The sandy-haired man chuckled a little, agreeing.

“Yeah, she told me that she had to learn how to defend herself when she worked at the bar. And then Nile wanted her and their kids to be able to protect themselves, so she trained even more. I wouldn’t mind at all having her help on the field, to be honest.”

Armin shook his head, amused, and a short silence fell between them.

“She’s strong. She will carry on.”

The blonde glanced at Jean, and noticed that his friend was now staring straight at the sun setting in the distance, his eyes reflecting the crimson sky like mirrors, focused on another world than the one they were standing in.

“She kind of reminds me of Marco’s mom, you know,” Jean whispered, and Armin looked at him curiously. It had been quite rare of Jean to pronounce this name lately. “When I went to tell her about Marco...” Jean’s voice broke a little, and he lowered his eyes. “I felt like I was Death itself, bringing misery in their house. Her husband and brother died in the suicide expedition after the fall of Wall Maria, and Marco was everything she had left. She begged him not join the military, but in the end, she still let him go because she didn’t want to restrain him and keep him from living for his dreams.”

Armin distantly heard the cicadas singing in the patch of grass a few meters from them. He didn’t speak, barely even breathing, feeling that Jean wasn’t done.

“I went to visit her yesterday. She’s running an orphanage now, and all the kids love her. And she… she said that she was really looking forward to the expedition with the new soldiers. She said that she knew that Marco was really dear to me, and that she trusted me not to let his death be in vain.”

Armin stared a little longer at Jean, then looked up at the sunset too. Jean had never told him that he was visiting Marco’s mother, but somehow it didn’t surprise him at all. Jean had always been like that. Pretending that he didn’t care, when really, he just cared too much.

“We’ll do it,” the blonde whispered. Jean turned his head toward him curiously. “We’ll do it,” Armin repeated louder, and clenched his fists resolutely. “We’ll defeat the Titans and free humanity from its cage.”

Jean looked at him, slightly confused at first, but soon his lips curled up in a soft smile, and he silently diverted his eyes to look at the horizon, his head tilted as if he was listening to Armin’s words been carried away by the soft breeze, out of Rose, out of Maria, to a better land waiting for them like a promise.

 

 

           

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, thanks for reading! :D  
> If anyone was wondering about the Dawk juniors' names, yes they refer to Bianca di Angelo, Luke Castellan & Adam Milligan.  
> (my precious dead babies *sobs*)


	5. Chapter Four

 

Levi stood silently by the wall as Nile ran to his wife and children, spreading his arms wide and embracing all of them at the same time, their tears and screams of happiness and relief drowned under the hurrahs of the crowd feasting in the streets. Little Adam made a face at being smashed against his dad’s leg, but Nile quickly leaned down to take him in his arms, chuckling and rubbing his nose against his son’s, telling him in genuine awe that he had grown up so much the past few years and that he had turned into a big boy in daddy’s absence.

“It feels almost too good to be true,” a voice suddenly commented somewhere above Levi’s head, and the man glanced up to find Jean watching the family reuniting with a soft expression. “I still can’t believe it’s over.”

Levi nodded distractedly, and turned his eyes back to the Dawks still being stupidly happy over there. Even from there, he could see that the last five years had left distinct marks on Marie’s face, but her features were still lit up with a warm light that sent peaceful waves in anyone looking at her, and Levi didn’t escape the rule.

“They deserve their happy ending,” he said quietly, and Jean hummed in agreement.

“We all deserve our happy ending,” the younger man added, but Levi still caught a hint of sadness in his voice. He looked up at him curiously.

“What is it, Jean?”

The man just sighed and shook his head slowly, and passed a hand behind his neck, grabbing the thread of his necklace and carefully pulling his head through it. The green orb shined brightly in the spring sun, perfectly catching and reflecting the afternoon light.

“Thirteen Commanders have worn this before me and dreamed of this day,” he started quietly, distractedly spinning the jewel in his hand and sending flashes of light around him. “It seems unfair that I’m the only one who can live it.”

Levi stared silently at Jean, then looked back at the yard and noticed that the Dawks had disappeared somewhere when he wasn’t looking. The silent and deserted fields around the Legion’s HQ contrasted weirdly with the cheering crowd outside, and gave him the impression of standing at the border between two worlds.

It was a strange feeling, and yet it had been a part of him for so long that it had just melted with his shadow.

“Hey, Jean, everyone wants you to make a speech!” a cheerful voice suddenly shouted, immediately accompanied by Armin’s face popping out from the doorframe with a large grin and an already red face.

“Oh God, Armin, what have you been drinking?” Jean exclaimed back with surprise and a little of worry. “You know you can’t hold your drink for your sake!” he finished with an exaggerated dramatic tone, to which Armin had the very bizarre reaction of sticking out his tongue and daring his friend to catch him. After a couple of seconds of shocked silence, Jean eventually sprang in motion and stomped in the blonde’s direction, an angry finger raised in front of him, which just had the effect of making Armin laugh hysterically and run away with a daring face.

“Come back here you little shit!” Levi heard Jean yell before he disappeared behind the walls of the HQs, and soon the air exploded with loud cheers from the crowd when they spotted him, when they spotted the man who had led the victorious expedition out of the walls, and then back again. The leader. Their messiah.

And Levi suddenly felt really bad for Jean. Everyone just saw how the Titans had been defeated, how everything would be better and just improve until they reached Heaven on Earth; but in the end, who would remember the thousands of lives that were lost in this century-long battle? The families, mourning their dead; and the survivors, carrying their fallen brothers in arms’ ghosts and memories on their shoulders and in their hearts.

And Jean, who would carefully write down the names of the ones who fell in this last battle for the records, stare at the page and memorize their names and recall what he knew and remembered about them. Jean, who would then silently close the book and put it back in the archives, and carry on with his life, a few fresh crosses planted in the graveyard in his heart.

And Levi, Levi who would then keep on walking this earth for years and decades and centuries, and never forget.

Levi, who wouldn’t be able to forget, even if he wanted to.

He slowly looked up to the sky, and his right hand found the cold silver ring on his left ring finger, familiar feeling that was as much a part of him than his whole hand was. He sometimes wondered how it had felt like before it was here, but he didn’t want to remember. He didn’t want to cut the red thread he still wanted to feel around his finger, going down and leading somewhere, somewhere maybe far far away, but still somewhere.

“What now?” he whispered, and only the laughs of the partying people behind the walls answered him.

 

*

 

_“Sir, pushing yourself too hard will only worsen your state!” the computer exclaimed with worry, but Levi ignored him and forced himself to stand up, then took a few steps before collapsing against the wall again. He could barely hear ARMIN’s young voice above the mad pounding of his heart, and he wondered distantly if someone had activated a particularly noisy fan near him or if it was just his breath._

_Something told him that it was just his breath._

_“This is enough, I am going to inform the Command –”_

_“DON’T YOU DARE!” Levi shouted before doubling over and coughing so hard that he had the feeling his lungs were trying to escape his body._

_“Don’t,” he repeated after a moment, when he managed to breath almost normally again. “You promised me. Don’t you dare betraying me, you fucking brat.”_

_“I remember and acknowledge that I did, but at that time my calculus didn’t take into account that you would be going back on missions so quickly! If you carry on like this you are not going to last the month, Levi.”_

_The man flinched a little at hearing the computer calling him by his name, but ARMIN didn’t give him the chance to comment._

_“I have been here since the first generation, Levi. There are centuries and centuries worth of records and data in my system, and I am convinced that keeping this secret from the Commander isn’t a good idea.”_

_“What? You know that he won’t let me go anywhere if he knew, and you are the first one to say that the Corps can’t fucking afford losing an experimented fighter with the upcoming expedition! Where has all your “humanity’s fate is worth all the sacrifices” speech gone, uh?”_

_Levi expected an immediate extremely logical reply from the computer, but strangely, ARMIN stayed silent. After a couple of seconds of surprise, Levi decided to take advantage of it to get a hold of himself and get back on his feet._

_“This isn’t all about humanity’s survival,” ARMIN suddenly declared, his voice strangely quiet in the deserted corridor. “It is true that Commander Smith doesn’t need to know this secret. In the end, you are just another pawn in this game; a very powerful and important one, but still a replaceable player. But…” The computer paused, and Levi felt the hair on his neck stand up and his heartbeat jump up again, but not because of his illness this time. He already knew what ARMIN was going to say, and he didn’t want to hear it, he didn’t want to have to face his decision this way; but the computer was ruthless, and ended his sentence anyway._

_“… what about Erwin?”_

*

 

Something was burning, and Levi’s inner alarm was ringing madly in his head.

Something was burning, and he couldn’t see anything.

A strident sound pierced through the air, and Levi screamed in pain, covering his ears with his hands. He could feel the heat around him, so hot, burning, the air was burning, the world was burning.

A particular smell suddenly reached his nose, and he wanted to puke.

Burned flesh.

Someone was burning, and it wasn’t him.

“Levi, get out!”

_What?_ he wanted to shout back, but no sound came out his mouth. And he still couldn’t see anything.

A scream of pain somewhere at his right. He shot his head in its direction, but the cracks of the floors and walls drowned any other sound.

“Help me!” a voice shouted in the distance, and Levi recognized Baptiste’s particular timber. It had always been too high for someone his age and stature, and he recalled the young man complaining that people used to make fun of him because of it.

_I volunteered to show them that I am brave!_

A strangled gurgle, and Levi knew that Baptiste was gone.

“Levi!” another voice yelled, closer, croaked and broken, but familiar.

Too familiar and almost forgotten.

Levi shot up his head with a gasp, not caring about the smoke he had just inhaled again.

“Erwin?”

He frantically turned around, trying to catch a hint of something, anything, anything that could tell him that he hadn’t imagined the voice.

“Erwin?” he called again. “Where are you?”

Something heavy cracked and fell on the floor with a loud thud, making the entire floor shake. His heart was beating madly in his chest, panic slowly seeping inside of him and making his breath even more difficult than it already was. He knew that the barracks were burning, and that the only things keeping him from suffocating were his unhuman systems.

“Erwin?” he repeated with a croaked voice before coughing harshly.

And suddenly, two strong and large hands seized him by his shoulders, and Levi felt something soft and wet on his forehead.

“Stay here. I love you.”

And then the hands and lips were gone, and Levi surged forward to try to grab Erwin before he disappeared, but his hands only met empty air. Only hot empty air burning his universe, and Levi opened his mouth in a scream, a silent and piercing scream that only seemed to resound in his own head, endlessly.

 

*

 

“He’s waking up!”

Levi gasped and opened his eyes on darkness.

“Erwin,” he croaked out, and frenetically moved his arms and legs to try to grab something in the nothingness surrounding him. A pair of warm hands immediately covered his own, giving him a solid anchor to reality.

“Hey, it’s okay, you’re with us now, Levi.”

Levi instantly stopped thrashing the air aimlessly and froze still instead, letting everything fall in place slowly. After a moment, the darkness turned into a cloudy night sky, and two figures appeared around him, their features hidden by hoods and barely lit by the moon through the thin clouds.

“What,” Levi managed to produce in a broken voice, and Armin smiled before letting his hand go.

“We have to hurry, they are going to post sentinels at the gates,” a young voice then said, making Levi turn his head to his left and squint at the hooded face. The person who spoke then turned around and Levi’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Bianca?”

“Jeez, looks like the fire damaged more than I thought. Don’t turn into a robotic vegetable on us, okay?”

Levi didn’t manage to feel completely offended, even if he felt that he really had all the rights to make a very snarky and hurtful reply. Instead, he just closed his eyes with a sigh and let his head fall back on… something. Hard. A lot of very hard little things. Like…

“Am I lying on a bag of potatoes?”

“Yes,” Armin replied blankly.

Levi cracked an eye open and glared at the blonde, who didn’t even make the effort to acknowledge his annoyance. Somewhere at his left, Bianca giggled but immediately stopped when Levi squinted at her with wide scary eyes. Instead, the girl coughed slightly and diverted her eyes to focus back on the road.

The road.

“What’s going on?” Levi suddenly asked, and felt like kind of stupid because it should have been one of the first questions that would have come out of the mouth of anyone with a bit of common sense, instead of some… consideration about potatoes. After a moment of silence, the man slowly sat up but quickly fell back with a grunt when the cart hit a particularly vicious rock. Something made a weird noise in his arm, and he looked at it with worry, wondering if something was broken. Which would be all kind of bad, because he had no idea how to fix himself beyond a certain level of complexity.

“We are getting you out of the city,” Armin eventually replied, tearing Levi out of his sudden contemplating worry, and the man noticed that his voice was hushed down as if he was afraid that someone might hear him. Levi blinked at him a few times in confusion and felt like formulating a question, but they turned around a corner and Wall Maria’s former gates suddenly appeared in front of them, at the end of the street. Bianca immediately stopped and the two men looked back at her curiously.

“I have to go back, now,” she said quietly.

“I understand. Good luck.”

“Good luck to you too.” Bianca smiled softly at them, and quickly turned around and trotted back into the narrow streets of the district after a final goodbye wave.

Or a farewell wave.

Levi looked up at Armin and frowned.

“You are hiding something, Arlert,” he stated, and the blond man sighed silently.

“Can you walk?” he asked instead of replying, and Levi huffed in exasperation. Even in flesh and blood the damned brat could never give a straight answer. But something in Armin’s tone hit his battle mode button and Levi slid to the edge of the cart and fell on his feet silently. His knees made a macabre grinding sound, but other than that they looked okay. Armin detached the cart from the horse dragging it, and seized its reins in one hand. The horse didn’t protest and obediently followed him, and Levi figured that it was Armin’s expedition mount.

“We don’t have much time, we have to hurry.”

And on these words, the two men and the horse surged forward, sliding through the shadows of the untouched ruins of destroyed houses and sometimes catching the pale form of a lonely skeleton here and there. It was an area no one had really dared setting a foot into yet.

Death was still too present here.

They crossed the gates, and Armin suddenly stopped and pushed his cape aside, revealing his 3DMG under it.

Then started unequipping himself.

“You’ll need this,” he said. “There’s not that much gaze left, though, that was all I could save from our storage rooms.”

“What happened, Armin?”

The blond man stopped briefly and glanced at Levi with some sort of surprise.

“You really don’t remember?”

“What am I fucking supposed to remember?” Levi hissed in response, and his exasperated tone made Armin wince and frown. After a short second, Levi’s tense body suddenly relaxed, as if his system had decided that being angry was too much effort all of a sudden, and he just stared with apathetic eyes at Armin. He suddenly felt so tired, and he hadn’t felt tired for years. Something was definitely wrong with him.

“I remember a fire. But I thought it was just a dream,” Levi eventually offered, remembering Bianca’s words. “Erwin was there.” His voice was almost imperceptible, but he saw that Armin still heard him in the way his features immediately softened. The blonde then looked down with a sigh, and resumed his laborious unstrapping.

“Someone set our new barracks in Maria on fire,” Armin began after a moment. “I’m sure they will say that it was an accident, but it sure like hell wasn’t.”

“They?”

The blonde took off the last of his equipment and handed it to Levi, gesturing at him to put them on.

“You noticed it too. How people started looking at you.”

Levi tightened the straps around his shoulders. He had noticed, yes. It was hard not to, though.

“They are scared of me. They are scared of us.”

“The _Council_ is scared of you,” Armin corrected. “All of you, you hold too much power in your hands. You are too strong and important. And they are afraid of you. They are trying to get rid of you. And they are using the people to achieve their goals. It’s the only way to completely get rid of symbols.”

“Symbols,” Levi repeated darkly. “Yeah, heard there were even people who started a cult or something.”

“It’s true. The Angels of Freedom. You have way more influence than you could think you do, Levi.”

The word awoke old memories in his brain, memories linked with pain and loss.

“They got Nile,” Armin then dropped, and Levi started and looked up at him with wide eyes.

“You know that Bianca joined the exploration squads to map the outer lands. She stayed at the HQ last night with her team, so she doesn’t know yet, but…”

The blonde took a deep breath and passed a hand on his face, and Levi noticed that he was almost looking like it was all he could do to keep himself from collapsing.

“They started in the evening, Levi. I… I was just cleaning up the archives room and then Jean stormed in and oh God, he was bleeding from everywhere, I don’t even know how he was standing but he just kept on yelling at me that I had to get you out, that they already got Nile and that I couldn’t waste any second and he wouldn’t even let me take a look at his wounds and Bianca arrived at that moment and then the living quarters were on fire and we ran there and you… you were just lying in the middle like a goddamn sleeping princess and everyone else was dead and God, I left Jean bleeding on the floor I don’t even know if he’s still alive!”

The end of Armin’s speech saw his voice gradually going higher and higher and finally ending in a desperate and panicked shriek, and Levi could see that he had been making incredible efforts to stay calm and focused and keep himself from breaking down sooner. And even if he was out of words to speak, Armin still stared at him with wide eyes, wide scared eyes who reminded him of the child Levi had first met, so many years ago.

But Levi stayed completely still, his mouth gaping slightly and his brain furiously processing what Armin had just told him. And he was convinced that if he still had a heart, it would have been pounding like a disorganized orchestra of drums.

“And you haven’t told Bianca,” Levi let out in a breath. Armin’s face retracted into a defensive expression, but even this seemed to be too much effort for him and he let the mask fall with a deep sigh.

“How could I?” he whispered. “She just knows that someone is targeting the fifty-six of you, but she still chose to help me instead of going back home. She said that she believed that her family was strong enough to defend themselves.”

Levi didn’t ask if Marie and Adam were fine. He doubted that Armin knew for sure, and he didn’t want to bring the conversation on it. It was already hard enough for Armin. Without a word, he ended fixing the gaze tanks by his sides and rolled his shoulders.

“I have to go back. I have to check on Jean,” the blonde then declared, and Levi nodded in agreement.

“Just one more thing,” he still said before Armin could completely turn around. “You said that I was in the middle of the fire.”

The blonde looked at him curiously for a short moment, then tilted his head.

“Yes, it was weird. You were in the middle of the room and everything was burning, but you… _you weren’t,_ even if you probably inhaled a lot of smoke. We had to bring the hose to extinguish the flames and when we reached you there was like… a small perimeter around you that was completely fine, as if something was protecting you.”

_Stay here. I love you._

Levi felt something stir inside of him, but before he could get a hold of it or say anything, the wind suddenly carried the heavy echoes of footsteps on the pavement of the streets of Maria, and Armin looked at him in panic.

“Go!” he told me with a gesture of his hand.

And Levi didn’t wait for him to repeat himself before he jumped on the horse’s back and Armin whispered a few words at its ears, a hand softly stroking its head, and the mount turned away and galloped to the forests, taking Levi away from the city, away from his home. He just turned back once to see what Armin was going to do, but the blonde had already disappeared, and Levi figured that if someone could get himself out of any situation, it was Armin Arlert.

He didn’t have time to worry about his former little duckling’s well-being anyway, now.

He was on his own. Exiled from his land, and running away for his life.

He used to be a hero.

And now, he was a fugitive.

 

*

 

_“Commander, please wait outside, you can’t c –”_

_Erwin didn’t even spare a glance to the young nurse trying to stop him, and forced his way inside the medical yard. The doctors gasped when he stomped in their direction, and one opened his mouth in protest before shutting it close when Erwin glared at him, and from some unspoken agreement all the doctors stepped back silently and let Erwin pass._

_“S – sir –” ARMIN began, but Erwin hushed him with a look. The computer took the hint and beeped out, and Erwin heard the doctors quietly backing off from the room too, the door sliding shut behind them._

_“Erwin…”_

_The man immediately focused back on the small figure lying in the capsule in front of him, and all at once everything he had pushed away since ARMIN had told him the news came back in a vengeance, and he kneeled next to the capsule, almost feeling little pieces of his heart falling down on the floor around him. He slowly raised a hand and carefully placed it on Levi’s forehead, delicately pushing his bangs aside. His skin was covered in little drops of sweats, and his whole body felt so hot, way too hot under Erwin’s touch._

_“I – I’m sorry I can’t go with the expedition…” Levi croaked out, and Erwin’s heart broke even more at hearing just how hard and painful the simple act of speaking was for him._

_“Hush, don’t talk,” he whispered, and tenderly stroked Levi’s dark hair. The other man smiled weakly at him from under his breathing mask, then closed his eyes, leaning against Erwin’s touch._

_Erwin had been furious, at some point. Furious that Levi hadn’t told him, furious that he had kept such a secret from him, and ultimately furious at himself for not having noticed it._

_But now, all his anger was gone, and he was just left with despair and pain to feed on his heart, and he just didn’t have enough strength to keep them in anymore._

_“E – Erwin…” Levi called, a hint of surprise in his broken voice, and he weakly raised a hand in his direction. Erwin quickly grabbed it between his own and leaned his head against it, and he just silently let his tears roll down his cheeks and wet the end of Levi’s slender fingers._

*

 

Levi rode for a long long time, and only stopped when his horse threatened to collapse right on the spot. He dismounted, and listened to what the wind brought to his ears, looking for anything telling him that his pursuers were close, but hearing nothing.

When the horse had rested, he took the road again.

           

Levi walked along forests and wild plains for days, and then weeks and months. He stopped briefly near a settlement, and left his horse there to the care of a friendly farmer who looked at him with wide eyes in genuine awe when he saw him, and exclaimed that he didn’t care what the people of the Capital were saying, Levi and his angels had saved humanity and he sure like hell wasn’t going to turn him in, astronomical bounty or not.

_Levi and his angels._

He left the settlement with new clothes and a bag with food he wouldn’t eat and water he wouldn’t drink, and continued his wandering.

He didn’t know where he was going.

He just walked and walked, and one day a strange scent arrived to his nose and he went in its direction, and froze in awe at the edge of the cliff.

The ocean was even more amazing than he had had ever imagined it. A few birds were circling above the waves, piercing the sky with their wings and cries, and Levi just stood there, still, letting the strong sea-side wind blow through his hair.

He felt like he could fly above the roaring waves, forever, never landing and just staring at the sea until he couldn’t anymore, and then just fall down and rest in its liquid arms for the rest of time.

He looked up to the sky, and he wondered if Erwin was watching him right now.

“Is it time for me to join with you yet?” he silently called, and he imagined that the blue of the sky was Erwin’s eyes, and somehow, his mental representation of the blond man shook his head before fading away. Levi stared at the clouds with a puzzled look, wondering where this strange thing had come from, but then shrugged and let it go.

He travelled to the rims of a very very small village, and he called it a village only because he was feeling in a generous mood. A few houses were spread here and there in a green plain, and Levi could see fields spreading somewhere in the distance. A large river was running not far from it, and the trees there offered some nice shelter against the burning summer sky.

Levi crouched down next to the water, and stared blankly at his reflection.

His reflection that hadn’t changed for too long for him to count anymore.

And then a small voice screamed something, and Levi shot his head up, listening.

“Help!” it called again, and Levi stood up immediately, the child’s screams guiding him to another part of the river where the water was flowing faster and the rocks were more slippery. “Help!” the child yelled again, and this time Levi spotted a small blond figure struggling to stay afloat, clinging with all his strength to a rock and threatening to let go at any moment now.

Levi didn’t think twice and dived in the water.

When he emerged back on the riverside, he was carrying a shivering small boy in his arms. He took his vest off and wrapped it around the child, frantically rubbing his limbs to bring some heat back in his body.

“Hey, kiddo, it’s dangerous to play here, you’re lucky I was passing by.”

The boy looked up at him with his big blue eyes, silently, and Levi caught a glimpse of fear in his pupils. He sighed a little and tried to force a smile on his lips. He wasn’t sure it came out right, but it seemed to have its effect and the child grinned back at him.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“I’m Erwin,” the boy exclaimed cheerfully. “Erwin Smith!”

 

*

 

_The first miracle was that you were born_   
_The second miracle was the time spent with you_   
_The third miracle was the "sincere heart" from the future you_

 

 


	6. Chapter Five

 

“What is the Commander wearing in this picture?” Erwin asked curiously, his head slightly tilted in a thoughtful way. Levi turned his head and looked above the boy’s shoulder to the two pictures he was keeping inside the locket he always hid under his cravat and his clothes.

“The Galactic Recon Corps’s uniform,” he answered, and didn’t have to wait long for Erwin to turn his head around and look at him with an interrogative frown.

“The what?”

“The Galactic Recon Corps’s uniform,” Levi repeated, deadpanned, and Erwin frowned a bit more.

“I heard it. What is it?”

“An old and long story you don’t have time for today.”

“What do you mean? I have time!”

“No you don’t. Do you think I haven’t seen you _not_ doing your homework for the past two hours?”

“But they are boring!”

Levi just shot him his most severe look, and Erwin flinched back a little, then huffed with a pout, and proceeded in staring at the older man with his most adorable puppy eyes in reprisal.

Levi almost cracked.

Almost.

“Quit this shit, young man,” he snorted and smacked Erwin’s head’s back. “Your uncle never managed to get this trick to work on me, and I can tell you he spent more than twenty years failing miserably.”

“You are lying.”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Erwin stared defiantly at him, and Levi clicked his tongue with disdain.

“Give this back and go do your homework,” he eventually snarled and snapped the pendant from the boy’s fingers before the latter could react. Erwin stared at his suddenly empty hand with surprise for a few seconds, then turned back and frowned at Levi.

And suddenly shot him a smile that foresaw nothing good.

“See, I was right, you were lying!” he exclaimed victoriously and quickly crawled away on his four before Levi could catch him, then stopped behind the stack of books still lazily flipped open on the grass a few meters away, using them as some sort of shield.

“You can’t reach me I’m doing my homework!” he called before grabbing a book and purposely lifting it in front of his face to hide behind it. Levi just stared at him with his unamused and six hundred percent done expression, and rolled his eyes when the blond boy peeked at him above his book and shot him a playful look before going back to read or pretend reading his literature assignment.

“You’d better get this shit done before six o’clock, you little brat,” Levi warned severely, and was just met with a distant “Yes mom” from behind the thick volume. The man dramatically threw his hands to the sky and sighed, but one could see the little smile on his lips if they looked close enough. Literature assignment. Levi wasn’t sure what exactly happened, but books had been gradually reintroduced among the population, the vaults of the Church apparently pouring all those centuries of forbidden knowledge and heritage without anyone being able to stop it. Maybe there really wasn’t anyone to stop it anymore. After all, the year they called Freedom had turned what used to be humanity’s best defence against an evil they couldn’t fully understand to merely big things most people were really eager to leave. There was no point in the Wall Cult and its preaches anymore, and it was only fair that humanity finally got back their legacy that had been kept from them for too long.

“When will you come to visit the town?” Erwin suddenly asked from his spot, his book lowered and resting on his crossed legs, and his eyes staring straight at Levi with a strange light dancing in them. “I’m sure Mom and Dad would love to meet you.”

The man blinked a few times, then sighed and looked down, his eyes accidentally falling again on the still open locket he was holding. It was a very old thing, this pendant; and still, both of Erwin’s portraits looked as if they had been taken and drawn the day before, as if no time had passed at all.

As if he was still here.

And something clenched painfully in Levi’s stomach.

“You know I can’t, Erwin.”

“Is it about the price on your head? No one cares in town, really. Everyone thinks you are a hero, they would never betray you! Besides, it’s been six years since the Crown issued it, I’m sure they have themselves forgotten about it already.”

Levi looked at Erwin with unreadable eyes, but the boy held his gaze resolutely, his whole body as tense as a stick of wood.

“Why do you want me to come with you so badly?”

“Because it’s not fair!” Erwin exclaimed, and Levi flinched a little at the sudden passion in his voice. “You shouldn’t have to live hidden like that, you fought for our freedom and yet you’re the one who can’t enjoy it! It’s completely unfair!”

Erwin’s words echoed silently between them for a moment, travelling all the way to Levi’s ears and sinking down his system, and distantly coming into resonance with things buried inside of him.

_The Wings of Freedom._

_The Angel of Freedom._

_Angel._

“I really don’t mind solitude, you know,” he replied quietly, and he heard the boy huff in exasperation. It wasn’t the first time they had this conversation, and yet they never seemed to be able to go all the way through it. He saw Erwin open and close his mouth a few times, looking for something to say to make him change his mind, but Levi’s voice rose again to his own surprise, deep and peaceful and carried away in the hot breeze of the end of summer.

“You’re here. It’s enough for me.”

And Erwin just stared at him with an unreadable look, so similar to the Erwin Levi had known and loved.

But also so eerily different, so unique and unfamiliar.

 

*

 

_“Sir, are you sure of this?”_

_“It is Levi’s will. I can’t take it away from him.”_

_“I understand, but it’s still very dangerous –”_

_“ARMIN.”_

_The computer immediately fell silent and Erwin sighed, dropping his head in his hands and leaning heavily on his desk._

_“He always said that he wanted to die in battle, to just have his rests drift forever in the infinity of space,” the man started quietly after a moment, then looked at ARMIN’s digital face on the screen. “Be honest with me, ARMIN.”_

_The computer blinked once and returned him a quizzical look._

_“Can you see anything crueller than letting Levi slowly fade away on a hospital bed, weak and powerless and unable to fly? Can you see anything crueller to inflict on him?”_

_ARMIN stayed silent for a moment, a lot of very complicated algorithms probably running behind his digital eyes. Erwin wondered what kind of data he was going through to answer his question, then wondered how many other people had shared their fears and secrets with the computer, how many people throughout the decades and centuries had participated in supplying ARMIN’s already incredible archives memories with their joy and pain and loss._

_After what felt like an eternity, the computer’s voice finally rose again, quiet._

_“I indeed don’t see anything, sir.”_

*

 

“Tell me about the Commander.”

Levi glanced at the blond teenager lying next to him under their usual tree and looking up at him with unreadable eyes.

“Still more handsome than you.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Erwin replied with a dramatic look at the sky.

“He took his coffee black with no sugar.”

“Levi!”

“What?”

Erwin grunted in exasperation before rolling to one side and sitting up. Levi clicked his tongue with a sharp breath when he had to tilt his head to follow his face, and some part of him already bitterly regretted the time when the blond boy was still shorter than him.

“I mean,” Erwin began after a moment, somewhat hesitantly. “What did he think when he had to choose whether it would be worth it to sacrifice his men? I know a lot of people thought that he was just ruthless and devoid of human feelings, but it wasn’t true, was it?” He stayed silent for a moment, absently fidgeting the end of his sleeve.

“Dad told me that their neighbours already looked at him weirdly and called him creepy since he was a kid and that he himself thought so for a moment,” the boy then continued with a quiet voice, eyes fixed on his shoes. “But that he still was the one who took care of him when he fell ill, and who defended him when he said that he didn’t want to join the family business and just start a farm somewhere.”

Erwin then shyly looked up at Levi, and the man just returned his gaze calmly for a few moments, before shaking his head and looking away.

“Why does it interest you all of a sudden?”

“Why wouldn’t it? He was a hero. I was named after him. And he was my uncle.”

Levi glanced at him, and he felt a strange pang of something in his guts at looking at the blond boy’s profile. His face still displayed rests of the roundness of childhood, but his features were getting sharper and sharper every day, his jaw getting stronger and his nose becoming more accentuated.

He looked more and more like the Erwin Levi knew with every passing day, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

“But what if it’s… actually true?”

The blonde looked down at him again and Levi felt his throat clench at the strange light dancing in his eyes, slightly widened and reflecting a mix between excitement and awe and…

… and fear.

“I mean, I know it’s kind of ridiculous and probably just silly belief, but –”

“Erwin,” Levi warned, but the teenager ignored him, keeping on talking with a look that slightly bordered on feverish.

“I was born nine months after he died. _Exactly nine months._ ”

“Erwin,” Levi repeated a bit louder, and the blonde suddenly froze and stared at him, his burst of illuminated passion quickly dying away like a retreating wave in his blue eyes, letting place to something much closer to worry and fear. “We already talked about it, and we agreed it’s pointless to try to find out anyway.”

“Yes but –”

“What? Did something happen that made you feel like you were possessed by a sudden urge of saving humanity or something?”

“No, no –”

“Then _what_?”

Erwin flinched back, an almost scared expression on his face, and Levi realized that he had screamed the last words and was probably wearing a very intimating expression, but he didn’t really feel like correcting it either. He had already spent too much time thinking about it, lingering on the possibility that the teenager sitting next to him may really be some sort of reincarnation of his Erwin, that the universe had given him a new chance. Again.

But the thought honestly just scared him more than anything else.

The two previous times had ended in blood and tragedy. What would make this time any different?

And then he looked at Erwin and thought about how different he was too, about how the time they were living in was so different from the era of war and fear and loss that Levi was used to live under. The boy in front of him was the son of a couple of peaceful and nice farmers and who had never seen war, liked arts and studying History, from the Dark Ages and before; Commander Smith never had the time for this kind of things, even though he had sometimes wondered if he would have liked to. And where drawing technical schemes for new battle strategies was something he excelled in, his nephew was rather fond of sitting at the same place for hours and trying to reproduce the landscapes or people in front of him.

And he was talented; Erwin had a hidden portfolio full of various portraits of Levi that he had never showed anyone else, along other landscapes he could see from their usual spot up on the hill not far from the river where they had first met.

Levi knew it because Erwin had offered them to him, and that they were now carefully stored in the leather bag he was always keeping with him.

“Sorry,” Levi eventually sighed. Erwin’s shoulders instantly relaxed, and he smiled hesitantly.

“It’s okay, I guess I shouldn’t have talked about it to begin with, I’m sorry.”

The dark-haired man just shook his head slowly.

“You’re barely sixteen, Erwin. You’re still young and you have your whole life in front of you. Don’t waste it on a relic from another time like me. It’s not worth it.”

“It _is_ worth it.”

“What?”

Levi stared at the blond with distant confusion, and Erwin just smiled back softly before suddenly reaching forward and taking his hands in his.

“You have barely even seen the world you fought so hard to create. Do you know that now, you can navigate on the oceans and climb the mountains and wander among the ruins of lost civilizations? Don’t you want to see it all?”

Levi looked thoughtfully at him for a moment, then diverted his eyes and focused back on the high grass lazily leaning one way and another, depending on the mood of the fresh wind.

“I’m going to Sina to join the exploration squads,” Erwin then stated, and Levi shot his eyes back at him in surprise. “And then I will come back and take you with me and you will give me the pleasure of enjoying yourself in the snow of the highest pics.”

Levi just blinked at him a few times, and Erwin chuckled lightly. The boy then looked down and Levi slowly followed his gaze until his eyes fell on the silver ring still loyally circling his finger, lazily shining and reflecting a miniature version of their faces.

“I won’t tell you that it’s probably what the Commander would have liked for you. You are right, I am not him and I have never known him, and I certainly can’t speak in his name. But I can speak in _my_ own name, and this is what _I_ want for you.” He paused for a second, and Levi felt his hold on his hands tighten a little. “I want you to be happy, Levi.”

Erwin’s voice had barely been more than a whisper, but when he looked up, his eyes were resolute and burning with conviction, and Levi could almost feel the ghost of his heart starting to beat faster.

“Well, look at you and your pretty words and pretty speeches,” his voice croaked out without his brain really checking on it before, and Erwin flinched slightly in surprise and confusion. “Say hello for me to Jean and Armin when you’re there, okay?”

Erwin blinked a few times more, but then suddenly burst out laughing, and Levi couldn’t help but smile fondly at hearing the clear laugh resounding around them. And for a moment, he felt like a door had opened somewhere in the universe, waiting for him to cross the threshold and merge with the warm light softly shining behind, waiting for him to just go and enjoy what the universe had to offer to him.

_You have done enough for the world, Levi._

He started a little at the voice that had suddenly spoken in his mind, a ghost from his memories lingering in him, and he could almost see Erwin’s broad figure slowly raising an arm and pointing in front of him and inviting him to walk forward.

And Levi looked in front of him, and a much younger version of his face was looking at him with a tender smile and saying something Levi didn’t quite understand but that didn’t seem that important anyway, and he just closed his eyes and focused on Erwin’s voice, pulling him forward and guiding him back to life.

And somewhere through all of these warm thoughts, Levi noticed distantly that Erwin hadn’t let go of his hands, and he smiled softly for himself, allowing it to turn into another happy memory he would keep dearly next to his heart for the rest of his existence.

 

*

 

_“The preparations are done, sir. We are now waiting for your authorization to proceed.”_

_Erwin looked down one more time at Levi through the glass wall of the capsule, and the dark-haired man smiled weakly at him._

_“See you soon, old man,” he mouthed, and Erwin chuckled softly before finally stepping back from the capsule, but not too far either._

_“Authorization granted, ARMIN. You may proceed.”_

_“Hum… I will have to ask you to leave the room, sir.”_

_Erwin sighed silently at the inquiry, but still nodded and slowly walked away from the chamber, his head turned back all the way to the door._

_“December 25 th, year 1012 since humanity left for its journey. Subject: Lieutenant Commander Levi of the Galactic Recon Corps.” the computer beeped while Erwin slowly pushed the door closed._

_“6:30 PM. Beginning of the Angel Program.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and for the feedback everyone \o/  
> Anyway, next time will be the epilogue, so hey, you just have to bear with me for one more chapter ehehe. 8D


	7. Epilogue

 

“There’s some sort of metallic structure here,” Levi called. “Doesn’t really look like the picture though.”

A couple of seconds later, he heard footsteps climbing behind him with some difficulty, and Erwin eventually emerged next to him, slightly breathless. He glanced at him and snorted.

“You’re getting old.”

“I’m twenty-two!”

“That’s not what those two little buddies over there say,” he shot back with a smirk, purposefully staring at the side of Erwin’s head. The blonde squinted at him with a frown, but chose not to comment and reported his attention back to the view in front of him to Levi’s greatest disappointment. After a moment, the short man finally resigned over the fact that Erwin wasn’t going to let him tease him again about the pair of white hairs that had mysteriously appeared on his scalp a few days ago, and looked back at the giant thingie covered in lichen and grass and various branches and that looked like absolutely nothing in front of him. He raised a hand and put the carefully reproduced drawing Erwin had made of a picture he had found in a very old book next to the actual rests of the monument, and looked back and forth a couple of times.

“This thing lacks like ninety percent of its height.”

“This _thing_ was called the Eiffel Tower, Levi.”

“It’s a fucking pile of destroyed metal crap.”

“It was an engineering wonder when it was built.”

“It’s ugly.”

“People from all around the world travelled across the continents and oceans to see it.”

The two men stared at each other defiantly, brows creased in spiteful frowns and daring the other to divert his eyes first. But despite the apparent tension, Erwin’s eyes were shining with amusement, and Levi couldn’t help a twitch of his mouth to betray him; and soon, Erwin’s laugh suddenly filled the silence and scared a few wild birds that took off and fled in panic. Levi tried to look like he was annoyed, but his features decided otherwise and he ended staring at the blonde with a fond expression, and just leaned against his side when Erwin slipped an arm around his waist and pulled him closer.

“The first version was built in a city called Paris, back on Earth. There were a lot of other monuments that people maintained through the centuries and attracted tourists from other places.”

“Tourists?”

“Yes, that’s how they called people from other places who came to see the local region. They had a lot of convenient ways to travel, like planes that could fly in the sky, and I think the researchers are starting to get a grip of the technology again. Who knows, maybe we will be able to get in one too, someday,” Erwin chuckled again, but then stopped when he noticed the distant expression on Levi’s face. He carefully leaned forward to catch a better view of him, and softly cupped his cheek and tilted his head up. “Levi? What is it?”

“I remember an archive about this, on the Ark,” Levi answered absently, his eyes on Erwin but not really seeing him. “About Seven Wonders that were lost in the wars and destruction.” He frowned slightly. “There were a lot of different lists though, it was weird. I wanted to ask Elias but he was busy. I think one of them was a Wall or something like that.”

“The Great Wall of China,” Erwin whispered, and Levi looked up at him.

“Yeah, that. The picture was pretty. You… - Erwin said that he would have liked to hang it on his wall if he had been allowed to.”

They fell silent for a moment, Levi lightly resting his head against Erwin’s chest and the blonde looking at the horizon and at the sky. The sun was bright and the sky devoid of clouds, offering a never-ending stretch of blue, going up and up to the atmosphere of Axiom and beyond into outer space. The very name of the planet had only emerged a few years ago, after the vaults of the Church had been unsealed. Their ancestors had come from up there, on board of three giant Arks, coming from an even further land, a millennium of travel from here. They had battled Titans in space too, and even now researchers were still wondering if the monsters they had later fought on the land weren’t related to their stellar cousins. It was a subject that captivated Erwin, but Levi never really wanted to offer him information on his own, and the look that any mention of the Arks always brought to his grey eyes had quickly dissuaded Erwin to insist. It frustrated him to no end, but he knew better than to push Levi.

And to be honest, it wasn’t the only thing that frustrated him in ridiculous ways. People who knew him also knew his ascendance, and even if being related to a hero was something that many would have wanted, Erwin always wondered if he would ever manage to step out of the shadows of not only his uncle’s imposing figure, but also of that distant man who had the chance to hear Levi’s heartbeat so long ago. Sometimes, Erwin still caught himself looking at the mirror and thinking that it was the face of another man, that it wasn’t really him Levi was seeing anyway. And then he would go down in a spiral of “Who am I” that always led him deeper and deeper in endless threads of existential questions, and he would eventually huff out in exasperation and brush it off altogether.

He wasn’t those heroes.

He was just Erwin, son of farmers and coincidentally related to one of them, explorer and historian and nothing even close to a soldier. And even if there was maybe a greater force playing with his life and possibly previous existences, in the end it really didn’t matter. Unlike the “previous” Erwins, he didn’t have glory and battles for a greater good to offer to Levi, but he had something even better.

He had peace and happiness.

“Our ancestors tried to rebuild a lot of monuments when they got here,” Erwin said quietly, one hand distractedly stroking Levi’s hair. “We will find them all. And you will see the Great Wall of China.”

Levi just hummed back in response, but Erwin could almost feel the little smile he most probably was wearing, and it was enough for him.

Levi’s smile had always been enough for him.

 

*

 

_A loud bang resounded in Levi’s ears, and he felt the whole ship shake._

_“What’s going on?” he heard a muffled voice shout. Erwin’s voice._

_“Ark Rose is under attack, sir,” ARMIN’s ethereal voice replied, somewhere in the distance._

_“How did you not see it before?”_

_“My apologies, sir, the operation took almost all of my power, my sensors only reacted when the Titans were in visual reach.”_

_A short silence._

_“What about Ark Sina?”_

_“They have already successfully passed the last part of the nebula and are reaching Axiom’s atmosphere.”_

_“They are not sending help, are they?”_

_Another silence._

_“It would indeed be very unlikely, sir.”_

_Through the mist of his brain, Levi understood a few parts of what had been said, and something almost instinctive stirred inside of him. He called Erwin and sat up._

_Except that he did neither of these actions, and just stayed completely motionless on his back, not being able to feel his body._

_“Levi,” he suddenly heard Erwin say, and soon his face was above him, blurred by the glass wall of the capsule._

_His eyes were beautiful._

_“Stay here. I love you.”_

_And then he was gone, and Levi’s world collapsed into darkness._

 

*

 

“Levi,” Erwin called, and a second later the pale face appeared above him, Levi’s dark bangs framing his face and drowning part of it in the shadows. The candles lightening the room were still reflecting warmly in his grey eyes, and Erwin smiled feebly at him, staring at the dancing flames in his eyes.

“Can you take me outside?” he asked. “I’d like to see the cherry trees blossoming.”

Above him, Levi frowned slightly, the shallow wrinkles creasing his forehead in an endearing way. He was so young.

He still looked so young.

“I hate to crush your dreams, old man, but the cherries are gone for quite some time now. It’s almost autumn.”

“Oh really?” Erwin laughed, and he caught worry flash through the shorter man’s eyes. “How time flies, I was sure it was still spring.”

Levi tilted his head and looked at him thoughtfully, his frown deepening a little. Erwin sighed silently, but he couldn’t blame him. He was aware that his memories had been a little – if not very – tricky lately, but it was true that this was starting to get really worrying.

“Well, some of the trees have already started turning red and yellow, do you want to see it?” Levi suddenly asked, and Erwin beamed at him.

“Yes, please.”

“Hold on a second.”

The old man heard Levi grab the wheelchair and roll it next to his bed, and then a pair of arms slid behind his back and his shoulders, and he was suddenly in the air, pressed against Levi’s chest.

“You lost weight again,” Erwin heard him comment, and he chuckled a little, not having anything to reply anyway. A moment later, Levi carefully put him down in the chair, and he let his head rest on the back with a pleased sigh. A heavy blanket then fell on his shoulders and covered him entirely, and he wiggled a bit, settling in a comfortable position in the warmth. Levi then quietly walked to the French window and slowly pushed the thick curtains to one side, letting the sunlight enter and illuminate the room.

“It’s so bright outside,” Erwin whispered, and Levi opened the window, allowing the fresh air of autumn to rush inside and caress his wrinkled and old skin.

“Come on, let’s show you the world,” the short man said, making Erwin smile. He then turned his head slightly to his left and caught the pure radiance of the silver ring on Levi’s finger, the same as it had always been but with a few delicate ornamentation he had added himself when they had got engaged.

And as the still somewhat warm sun idly heated his face, Erwin distractedly traced the same thin inscriptions on the ring he had around his own finger, smiling softly and just letting the warmth of his memories flow through him.

 

 

 

***

 

 

           

“No, that’s totally not a good idea.”

“What, you scared?”

“No, I’m not!”

“Boo, Jean is a little wimp!”

“Shut up Eren!”

“Guys guys, come on…”

Marco sighed deeply while his friends proceeded in ignoring him and bickering like five year-old for the umpteenth time.

“This is fascinating, don’t you think so?” a quiet voice suddenly asked next to him, and Marco looked away from the grown-up brats to focus again on the memorial at the other side of the barrier. Two tall stones were raised in perfect symmetry, ornamented by beautiful and carefully carved sculptures, and displaying a golden plate at mid-height.

With the same name written on both of them.

“There is actually only one corpse under there. They never managed to retrieve Commander Smith’s rests,” Armin continued.

“Yeah, I know. He was eaten by a Titan.”

The blonde nodded absently, but before he could say anything else Jean suddenly shouted something and stomped next to the barrier, putting a foot on its basis and pushing himself up.

“Fine, okay, I’m doing it!”

Behind him, Eren was smiling like a shark and took his cell phone out of his pocket, obviously putting it in camera mode.

“This is sooo going on YouTube, horseface. Try not to pee yourself, okay?”

“One day I’m going to make you eat your stupid phone and shoes just wait for i –”

“Hey you! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The teenagers shrieked in unison when a broad-shouldered and very muscular member of the security staff stomped in their direction, and Jean immediately jumped down and they both ran away, pursued by a very pissed off keeper.

A few meters away, Marco stared at them with a completely blank face. He had never thought that he would say it someday, but his friends’ shit didn’t even impress him anymore.

“Hey, was Jean trying to get over the barrier?” someone asked with a strong voice behind him, and Marco turned around to find Reiner and Bertholdt following the pursuit with slightly confused eyes.

“Yeah,” Marco sighed. “Eren called him superstitious, then they started arguing and he challenged Jean to get closer to the graves and well, you know…” He threw his arms up in the universal “I give up” sign.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to get over there,” Armin suddenly said, making all eyes fall on him.

“What? You think that this statue is actually alive? Come on man, it’s just a legend,” Reiner laughed and slapped the short blonde’s back playfully, making him trip forward and gasp. But as soon as he had regained his balance, Armin’s eyes fell back on the memorial again, and Marco followed his thoughtful gaze. Even from there, he could clearly see the words on the plates.

 

_Erwin Smith_

_13 th Commander of the Scouting Legion_

_October 14 th, 48 BF – June 21st, 7 BF_

_Erwin Smith_

_Explorer and Archivist_

_March 21 st, 6 BF – January 23rd, 71 AF_

But even more than the impressive stones and strangely matching death and birth dates, what really attracted tourists from all over the world here was the short statue standing between the stones, perfectly still and frozen for eternity in the old military salute, one hand above his heart and the other behind his back. The uniform he was wearing could now only be found in museums and replicated for historical movies or plays, but somehow Marco knew the one the statue was wearing was a real one, as much as he knew that the two blades planted at each side of him had actually seen Titan’s blood, centuries ago.

_Woe to him who threatens their peace, for the Guardian will slay the intruder._

There was a legend saying that the statue wasn’t really one, that it was actually the one people used to call Humanity’s Strongest back in the Dark Ages, and who had been given many names after, but whose real name had long been lost in oblivion.

But it was just a legend, such a thing wasn’t possible.

“Or is it really?” Armin whispered, his words wrapping around the silent breeze and sinking inside of Marco’s heart.

“Who knows? It’s the point of a legend, isn’t it?” Bertholdt quietly replied, to Marco’s surprise, and even Reiner didn’t make a snarky comment back. “We should go, it’s late. The teachers are going to worry.”

“Wait, what hour is it?” the brawny blonde suddenly exclaimed, and Marco saw his features melt into an expression of absolute despair when he checked his phone. “Oh no, I was supposed to have a tutoring class with Dawk, I’m never going to pass the year at this rate oh my God.”

The three other boys looked at him with compassionate eyes, all of them knowing how their History teacher was with disobedient students, and they started moving away from the memorial, gesturing at Jean and Eren who had eventually been forced to apology to the site’s director and were now looking incredibly pitiful.

And as soon as they were gone, a little blond boy walked to the barrier and stared thoughtfully at the statue.

“Levi,” he called, and his grandmother smiled softly. The boy then turned around and looked up at her, a strange sadness in his eyes. “Do you think he will ever come back to life?”

“Who knows, darling,” the old lady answered quietly, and pulled her grandson against her side, a hand softly stroking his hair. “The world doesn’t need heroes like him anymore, but he will still stay with us for a long long time, or at least I hope so.”

The boy stared at her grandmother with curious eyes.

“What do you mean, Grandma?”

She just looked back and smiled tenderly, then reported her attention back to the two stones and their silent and still guardian.

“He is here to show to us that no matter how low we fall, no matter how everything seems to go sideways, there is always a light somewhere, a light that we can reach if we believe hard enough, if we fight hard enough and don’t let our vision go dark.

Levi is that light, darling. He is hope.

He is the Wings of Freedom.”

 

*

 

_The first miracle was that you were born_   
_The second miracle was the time spent with you_   
_The third miracle was the "sincere heart" from the future you_   
_The fourth miracle does not exist_

_There is no need for a fourth_

*

 

FIN

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so if you were wondering about the dates, BF means "Before Freedom", and AF "After Freedom".
> 
> Aaaaand so it's done now heeeeh )o)  
> Thank you for the ones who read it until the end asxdfzknlerlg *-*)/ ♥


End file.
